


After Pie

by Autumn_Maple_Tree



Series: The Ancestor [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:59:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 59,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7208741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autumn_Maple_Tree/pseuds/Autumn_Maple_Tree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olle moves into the Men of Letters Bunker. Gabriel and Lucifer try to assimilate. Cas confronts Metatron. Sam and Dean hunt dragons and go to a gay bar!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really liked this one the whole time I was writing it. This is the last full work I have finished for this series if I want to keep posting them in order, and I do, so it's going to slow down after this. 
> 
> Just because I tag a relationship doesn't mean it's about sex.

Two weeks after the trip to Smith Center for breakfast, Olle wonders sleepily through the Bunker toward the small kitchen they all use. He had spent the last three days hunting vampires in North Dakota; taking Dean with him while Sam and Cas continued to research the Darkness. They had been back exactly long enough for him to grab a shower and realize, despite his exhaustion, he was ravenous. Dean's diet of bad drive thrus and worse diners made him ache for something real to eat, and he was pleasantly surprised when he opened the refrigerator and found enough odds and ends to make himself a Monte Cristo. As he turned from the stove, plate in hand, Dean and Sam came in, geared up like they were leaving. 

“What's going on guys?” Olle asks grabbing a knife and fork to eat the buttery, cheesy sandwich. 

“Got a call from a friend,” Dean says dropping his bag by the door and going over to make coffee, while Sam grabbed an apple from the counter. “Headed out to Cottage Grove, Minnesota. Something is killing people and it's dressed like a rabbit.”

“Let your brother drive Dean,” Olle says taking a bite of his sandwich before going to the refrigerator for ketchup, he knows it is awful, he does not care, and a glass of water. “You haven't slept in two days. The rabbit,” he asks dropping back into his chair, “if they have them in custody, what's up?”

“The costume, the head,” Sam says, “won't come off.”

Olle nods, “Could be cursed object.”

“Yeah,” Dean says pulling a Yeti mug from the cabinet and filling it with sugar and that horrible non-dairy creamer. “Shouldn't take more than a couple days there and back,” he says going over to wait, impatient as ever, on the coffee. 

Sam joins his brother, empty mug in hand, and asks, “What are you gonna do?”

Olle swallows before answering, “I'm gonna get about twelve hours of sleep, then teach Cas yoga.” 

“What?” Sam asks reaching for the pot after Dean fills his mug. 

Olle shrugs, “He saw me doing the Sun Salutation and said he wanted to learn. I think he knows more than he's letting on, though. I told him I'd show him.”

“Cas, doing yoga?” Dean says shaking his head. “I can't see it.”

“Hey,” Olle says, “the vessel got that body somehow. He looks like a runner, though, all long lean muscle. He'll take to yoga.” 

Dean gives the bigger man a long, uncertain look before grabbing his bag and saying over his shoulder, “Let's go Sammy, burning daylight.”

Sam stares at the other hunter for a moment, Olle obliviously gone back to his food, before he shakes himself of whatever he was thinking and follows his brother. 

Olle finishes his food and wonders back toward his room, but he notices the light from the TV in Sam's room. Giving a gentle knock on the partially open door, he pushes it further open and walks inside. Cas is sprawled on top of the made bed in black sweats that must have, at some point, belonged to Sam because they were too long for the angel, and a gray t-shirt. This is exactly where he was when Olle came in that day and found him alone before they went to help Dean and Sam go after Crowley and Amara. He thinks about sitting down on the bed, but he will go to sleep if he relaxes at all, so he stands there and says, “Hey Cas, what'cha doin'?”

Cas doesn't look up, just lifts his arm to point at the screen, remote in hand, “Watching 'A Fantastic Fear of Everything.' It is very interesting,” the angel says. 

Olle looks at the screen, poor Jack was setting his socks on fire in the oven, and says, “It was a good movie. Simon Pegg does a lot of good movies. Hey Cas,” the big man asks after a pause, “how long have you been laying here like this, watching TV?”

“Sam has been sleeping,” he pauses for a moment, “somewhere else,” he says like he is not sure where but does not really care. “He says the light keeps him awake. That was right after you and Dean left. How long have you been back?” he asks, still not paying attention to anything but the TV. 

Olle groans and, if it were any other angel, he would be praying to Gabriel, but it is Cas and he cannot ask Gabriel for help with the angel. He takes a deep breath and asks the older archangel for a small favor, 'Hey Luce,' he prays silently to himself, 'Cas is really messed up right now and I'm draggin' serious ass. I know it is a lot to ask, I shouldn't, it's abuse of power, but I need a quick snap to recharge my battery so I can try to fix your broken brother.' Before he is finished praying, Lucifer appears in the doorway and Olle just follows him out into the hallway. 

“He is a mess,” the angel says sadly from his lean in the doorway across the hall. “Sam and Dean should stop leaving the door open, anyone can just come in and out.”

Olle goes over to him, voice low like the archangel's, not to distract Cas from the TV, “I think they do it for Cas, but I'm not sure they realize how heavily warded the place is, how impregnable it is when the door is sealed.” 

Satan shrugs, “You said you needed me to 'snap to recharge your battery,' but I don't know how to do that.” Lucifer does not question why Olle did not pray to Gabriel or Balthazar; he knows both have issues with Cas that have yet to be resolved. 

Olle sighs, he had forgotten all the simple things the archangel did not know his Grace could do. Teachable moment, awesome, he thinks tiredly, before motioning for Lucifer to follow him down the hall into the library. Sitting down at the table, Lucifer across from him, he starts, “Just looking, because you're an archangel, you can tell what a perfectly healthy person or a not so healthy person looks like, right?” At his nod, Olle goes on, “Now, you know me, based on my baseline appearance, how do I look right now?”

The angel's eyes go unfocused for a moment and glow, slightly, with Grace before he says, “Sick all over, but not dangerously so.”

“That,” he says tiredly, “is exhaustion. I haven't slept in three days, I haven't had a really decent meal in almost a week, I'm probably a little dehydrated, I killed eight vampires last night, we had to get rid of all fifteen bodies, there were six survivors and two who needed the cure, plus four victims, and Dean refused to stay longer than it took to clean us out of there so we drove all night. I want IV fluids, a double dose of oxcy, and fourteen hours of sleep,” he says bluntly. “Cas is marinating in whatever funk he has sunk into, though, and Sam and Dean are just letting him stew. They either haven't noticed, don't know how to deal, or, in classic Winchester fashion, are oblivious to anything not the two of them.”

“I'd go with the last one,” Lucifer mumbled and Olle smirks, he is getting better. “How do I fix all this?” he asks gesturing to all of Olle with one hand and an distasteful look on his face. “So you can fix Cas.”

“It is a healing, but it's more complicated than just putting a lot of broken or missing stuff back where it goes,” Olle says. “If you keep practicing, the easier ones can be done without touch.”

“How can putting one of you back together like you're supposed to be ever become as easy as something like resetting time? Dad made you all pretty complicated, there are so many different layers and parts,” Lucifer says.

As a surgeon, an immortal, and a user of magick, Olle knows Lucifer is not wrong, but he underestimates his own ability to grasp and merge the different concepts of chemistry, biology, and spirituality. “You'll get better, Cas and Baz could both do it, before Michael got hold of them, it'll come to you. This, though, is harder than what I already taught you. You'll have to touch me, anywhere, but it helps if you pick a power point like my heart or my third eye, so you don't have to force my body to accept what you're doing; it just flows through the energy point.”

“Okay,” Lucifer nods getting up and coming over to stand in front of the big man. “How much do I have to touch you? Like my whole hand or what?”

Olle chuckles, “It depends on how much Grace you think you'll need to fix me. As an archangel, though, you have a lot of power in a small amount of Grace so one finger should do. If I were dying, all cut up or shot or cursed or something, maybe two, but you'll get a feel for it the more you do it.” Lucifer nods and places his right index finger on Olle's forehead at his third eye. “Now, it's about letting your Grace flow out of you and into me, but not with any real purpose. Grace is pure energy, perfection, and it heals automatically. Try it,” Olle says with a nod and feels Lucifer's Grace slowly spread through him and he sighs, it feels amazing. He closes his eyes and feels the ache, the exhaustion, the hunger all leave his body.

“Now what?” Lucifer asks. 

“When you can look at me and tell I'm well again, withdrawal your Grace back into your own body,” Olle says as he fills himself start to empty of the archangel's energy. “The more you practice, you'll learn to single out what needs fixing and focus on that.”

“How's that?” Lucifer asks uncertainly, stepping back to look the big man over, satisfied, but needing positive reinforcement. 

Olle stretches in his chair and, with a groan, says, “I feel great Luce, thanks!” Standing up, he turns to the angel and asks, “How is everyone? I'm going to try to sneak off back to the house soon, grab my bike and some books and weapons; clothes would be great. Just see how everyone is doing.”

“Training is a constant,” Lucifer starts. “Kevin is as enthralled by your libraries as I am. Even Linda is getting Beth to teach her Latin and Beth and Balthazar are teaching her hand to hand, standard firearms, and small blade combat; she is surprisingly good, a quick learner.” Lucifer says it all with the detached voice of a soldier delivering a report, but Olle is still impressed with his observation of Kevin, Linda, even Beth; it would not have shocked him if the archangel completely ignored the existence of all of them but Gabriel.

Olle nods, taking his report, and says, “How's your brother?” knowing the omission of Gabriel's goings on had been on purpose. He wants to know, but, at the same time, doesn't and finds himself waiting, nervous to hear the archangel's answer.

Lucifer pauses for a few precious microseconds to think about how to answer that. He knows what Olle is really asking and he knows how his brother would respond, he also knows why Olle prayed to him and not Gabriel; and it was not just because of Castiel. “He reads almost as much as Kevin and I do, combined,” the devil starts. “He attempts to track our aunt, unsuccessfully, and he trains. He is,” Lucifer pauses for the right word and to let Olle know, without telling him, that Gabriel is coping if not moving on, “focused on the mission.”

Olle sighs, wishing Lucifer had given him more, but glad Gabriel is doing well; better, at least, than Cas right now. “Good,” he says standing to clap Lucifer on the back, “good. Thank you, Luce, for your help. You're welcome to stay, if you can, I'm going to teach Cas yoga,” he says starting toward the doorway leading to the hallway where Sam's room, and Cas, are located. 

Lucifer smiles and laughs quietly, “I will stay for a while, hopefully proximity to my Grace will improve my little brother's mood.”


	2. Chapter 2

Lucifer follows Olle down the corridor, into Sam's room, goes over to the desk, and discretely picks up the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire anthology, while paying very little attention to what Olle and Cas are doing. It is not that he is not interested but that he knows, if Olle needs him, he will let him know. 

“Hey Cas,” Olle says watching Lucifer pick up the book and lean on the desk to start reading. He came into the room and sat on the edge of the bed, facing the angel, before he spoke, but the seraph is still wholly focused on the TV; watching Arrested Development now that his movie was over. Lucifer, still leaned against the desk reading his book, sticks his leg out and kicks the bottom of his brother's bare foot with his boot, causing Cas to jump and look at Olle, who is trying not to snicker. “Hey man,” Olle tries again, a grin in his voice, “lets go do some yoga.”

“I thought you were going to sleep?” the angel asks, finally looking up at the other man. 

“I will,” Olle says, “yoga helps me sleep. I'm wound too tight to rest right now, come on,” he says tilting his head at the door. “You said you wanted to learn.” Cas sighs, letting Olle know he is not prepared for such enthusiasm, and exits out of the Netflix app before turning off the TV and following Olle down the corridor to the elevator, Lucifer following, invisible and silent, behind them. 

Once they were in the elevator, headed for the training room, Cas asks, looking down at Sam's too big sweats and v-neck t-shirt, “Am I dressed okay?”

“Are you comfortable?” Olle asks. When Cas nods, he goes on, “Perfect.” For Olle's part, he was wearing a pair of blue sleep pants and a white t-shirt, so all he has to do is take his shoes off and he will be good to go. 

Lucifer manages to get nearly half finished with his book while Olle goes through two hours worth of yoga posses, trying to make unimportant conversation and keep Cas engaged. The angel needs almost no instruction after being shown what to do, but Olle tells him the basics of which muscle groups are being worked; the importance of balance, flow, and structure during practice; to work the whole body, equally on all sides. Cas seems to be enjoying what he is doing and, when he starts to respond to Olle's light conversation, the big man gets an idea and fires off a silent prayer to the angel with a book fetish who is laying in the middle of the boxing ring across the room; like he was a teenage girl sprawled out on her bed, “Luce,” at that the angel's head perks up to stare across the room, “this may mean a bit of work on your, Baz, and Beth's part, but I'm not sorry. Thanks.” 

At the end of their practice, as they are rolling up their yoga mats and storing them in the cabinet near the far wall, Olle turns to Cas and asks, “I was planning on going to Kansas City tomorrow, to get some things, books and weapons mostly, and my motorcycle. Would you like to go with me?”

Cas hesitates and Olle gets the feeling the angel is reluctant to leave the Bunker. Putting his mat away, Cas turns to follow Olle back toward the elevator before he answers, “I think I'll stay here in case Sam and Dean need someone to do some research for them.”

Olle nods, using his age and power to push, just a little, at Lucifer's mind where he is standing, still reading, in the far corner of the elevator. The archangel looks up and Olle asks him, “How does he look to you? Unless he reaches out to me, I can't tell.”

Lucifer pushes back, hard, and Olle has to force him out of his mind but the archangel quickly reigns himself in and says, “I'm sorry, I need practice doing this with a human.” Olle smiles and Lucifer continues, “He is very weak. It was apparent Michael did something to him to weaken him after he got him back, but this is more. His Grace is absorbing mine and using it but it does not seem to be healing. It is subtle, though, and I doubt anyone but an archangel would notice it.”

“Could that be something Metatron did to him, either on purpose or by accident, when he took his Grace for the spell he used to cast everyone out of Heaven?” Olle asks silently. 

Lucifer tilts his head and continues to stare at his brother in concerned concentration, “It is possible. Other than that, though, he looks very much like you did when I got here, only, there is a pervading melancholy to it as well.”

Having followed Cas back to Sam's bedroom door, Olle says to him, “Well Cas, I hope you enjoyed the yoga. You should do it every day, we can do it together if you'd like,” he says cheerily. 

“That would be a good idea, thank you Olle, it was interesting and pleasant,” the angel responds before going back into Sam's room and closing the door. Olle sees the light of the TV from under the door and he sighs, turning to go back through the corridor to his room. 

When Olle gets to his room, Lucifer is sitting cross legged in the middle of his bed, still reading. “This is a very good book,” the archangel says. 

“Baz hasn't gotten you to watch Game of Thrones yet?” Olle asks pulling his clothes off to get in the bed, wearing only his black boxer-briefs. 

Lucifer shifts over to one side of the bed when Olle lays down and answers, “He tried, but Gabriel said it might not be appropriate for me yet.”

Olle chuckles, “Stay as long as you like, I think Sam has all of them. Just,” he rolls over to look up at the angel, “tell Gabe where you are, don't let Cas or the guys see you, and if you're going to stay in here I need you to knock me out because I can't sleep with the light on and you can't read in the dark.”

“When,” Lucifer asks, not looking up from his book, “would you like to wake up? I'll stay and take you and your truck back with me tomorrow so you won't have to leave Cas for very long.”

Olle smiles, his uninterested concern for his little brother is proof of his progress; it is almost human. “Five-thirty or six tomorrow morning will be fine. Thanks, I do like the idea of not leaving him alone.” Lucifer nods and, when Olle is face down in his pillow, the angel snaps and the big man is instantly asleep while the angel continues to read. He does not even notice that he did it without instruction.


	3. Chapter 3

At six the next morning Olle wakes up, his room dark, the door closed, and he stretches before getting up to turn his bedside lamp on. Once he is showered, dressed, and armed, he leaves his room to find Lucifer sitting on Sam's desk, still reading, while Cas in still sprawled over the bed watching Arrested Development. “Hey Cas,” Olle says coming in to sit on the edge of the bed. “I'm heading out, you sure you don't want to go?” he asks encouragingly. 

The angel doesn't even look up when he answers, “Michael is about to find out about Maggie, I can't just leave.” 

Olle really wants to break Sam's TV but is pretty sure Cas would just use his Grace to fix it so he only nods. “Well, I'll be back late tonight or tomorrow then,” he stands up and an idea comes to him, so he turns at the door to say, “We'll talk about Metatron when I get back, we've let that fall to the wayside for too long and that's my fault.” He does not wait for Cas to answer, hoping he will just continue to mull it over while Olle is gone. 

Lucifer is waiting for him in the corridor and asks, “Metatron?” Olle notices he is carrying two books, one it looks like he has not started to read and the other with a page marked by his finger. “What about him? Gabriel has Balthazar searching for him, but we haven't found him.”

Olle nods, “Humans are hard to track if you don't have a bead on them already and that prick is craftier than most. Cas found him by accident but it was the day I died and we've both just not picked it up again. I'll let you all know what happens but this could be a good thing, something to pull Cas out of his slump.”

Lucifer nods, they have been walking and finally reached the garage, where his truck is parked, “Okay then. You ready?” he asks.

“Yeah, but, are you stealing Sam's books?” he asks with an amused look on his face. 

Lucifer looks down and the look on his face makes Olle kick himself. “I didn't think it would be a problem, he is gone and no one will know. I will put them back,” he starts and turns to head back through the bunker. 

Olle reaches out, turning him by the wrist, and he smiles into Lucifer's unsure, sad face, “There is nothing wrong with it Luce,” he says reaching up with his other hand to cup the angel's shoulder. “Sam wouldn't mind; put them back when you're done, and it's just like the library. It's a good thing you've found something you're interested in purely for amusement.” Olle smiles at him again and his face softens before he nods and goes back over to pull open the passenger door and get in Olle's truck. 

Seconds later, they are sitting in Olle's garage in Kansas City and the big man is both thankful he did not have to drive four hours and anxious because he has had no time to prepare for seeing Gabriel.

**

“I'll take you back when you're ready,” Lucifer says before disappearing from the front seat, most likely upstairs to his room; so he can read in peace.

Olle shakes his head and gets out of the truck, immediately looking to his bike and pulling the straps to tie it down with out of the back seat. “Hey Baz,” he calls out through the open kitchen door, when he sees the angel come into the room. 

Balthazar notices Olle and comes over to the door, “I didn't know you were here,” he says leaning on the facing. 

“Just got here,” Olle says. “Can you help me with this?” he asks gesturing from the bike to his truck with the strap in his hand. Balthazar snaps and everything is done for him. “Thanks,” Olle says with a smile, coming over to go inside the house. 

“Does Gabe know you're here?” the angel asks moving to let the bigger man slide past him into the kitchen. 

“I don't know if Luce told him I was coming back with him or not,” Olle says going over to grab some coffee out of the pot and pull an apple off the counter before grabbing a salted caramel protein bar from the pantry. 

Balthazar gets his own coffee and they sit at the island, not talking, while Olle eats and the angel nurses his drink. When Olle gets up to throw away his garbage and refill his cup, Balthazar says, “Beth, Gabe, and Linda went for a jog right before you showed up. If you hurry, you can be gone before they get back.”

Olle turns to look at Balthazar then and asks, “Is it really so bad that we need to stay totally away from each other? How is he with Beth?”

“Oddly,” Balthazar says, “they seem fine with each other. Maybe Gabriel is just gay,” he muses and Olle laughs. 

“He's not gay, Baz. Kali, remember?”

Balthazar shrugs, “Never the less. It could just be that, since our return, you and she have been separate and all the emotion he has shared has been with only you. I can see how hard it is on you,” the angel says, “but if you're both bound and determined not to be together, though I have no idea why, then you have to keep as much distance as you're able.”

“I love him Baz,” Olle says sitting back down and staring into his coffee. 

“That much is apparent when looking at either of you,” the angel says. “Why, then, aren't the two of you so wrapped up in each other no one can tell where one of you stops and the other starts?”

“Because,” Olle says seriously, “that is exactly how it would be. We wouldn't be able to disentangle ourselves from each other. There is an ache in me so deep I'm surprised Creation isn't shuddering, but we will not jeopardize everyone, everything, just to be together. If I never get to have him, then I won't need to cease to be if I lose him again,” Olle says, voice thick. “If he dies,” Olle goes on at an emotional whisper, “if he dies again, it will be worse than the First War, the Mark, worse than Hell.” Olle takes a deep breath, sighs, and goes on, “Like this, we stand a better chance of winning. Like this, we don't lose sight of everyone in favor of simply keeping each other alive.”

“You'd really burn it all down just to keep him with you, if that's where he wanted to be?” Balthazar asks seriously. 

Olle takes a long drink from his cup before he turns to the angel and says, “Sam and Dean have nothing on me because I can and would; with very little effort.” He gets up, rinses his cup before putting it in the dishwasher, and says, “Help me get my shit so I can leave. I'll leave Beth a note.”

Less than an hour later, the two have packed all the books, weapons, and clothes Olle wanted and the big man leaves his female counter-point a note before stealing leftover food from the fridge and knocking on Lucifer's door. “Hey man,” the doctor says sticking his head in the door, “I'm ready whenever you are.”

“That was faster than expected,” Lucifer says putting his book down on the coffee table before getting up. 

Olle shrugs and says, “Don't want to leave Cas longer than necessary.” 

The angel looks at him skeptically but says nothing until they are sitting in the garage of the Bunker once again. Lucifer turns to Olle, “I'm going to put these back,” holding up Sam's books. 

“Luce,” Olle says seriously, following him through the Bunker, “you really, really don't have to.”

“It's okay, I ordered them on Amazon as soon as I got back to your house and they should be there tomorrow.” Walking into Sam's room, both are quiet, but they realize they needn't be because the room is empty. Lucifer puts the books back where he found them and turns to Olle, “Where else would he be? We were barely gone two hours.”

“Find him for me Luce, quickly,” the man says turning and running toward the garage, a pit swelling in his stomach, because he can only think of one place the angel would go. When he gets to the garage, Lucifer is waiting for him and Olle does not even wait to hear what he has to say, “Get that down for me,” he points to his motorcycle before going to the truck to grab some weapons and, as an after thought, runs his leftovers into the kitchen where he finds a piece of paper and scribbles Sam and Dean a note before going back to the garage. 

“Why would he go to Wichita?” Lucifer asks when Olle comes back into the garage. 

“Metatron,” Olle says. “I fucked up, Luce. Is he okay?”

“He was ten minutes ago,” the devil says. “Why are you worried about him confronting the Scribe when he is human now?”

“That weaselly bastard knows too much not to be dangerous,” Olle says double checking all his weapons before throwing his leg over his bike and dropping down. “I can play it off like I wanted to stop and see if I could find him before I got Cas involved. Can you get me there before you head back?” Olle asks. 

“Please don't hesitate to let us know if you need help. He is at the coffee shop across the street from where I'm going to put you,” Lucifer says before he snaps and Olle is on his bike alone in the back of a parking lot.


	4. Chapter 4

Olle's first step is to pull out his phone and call the angel. When Cas picks up on the second ring Olle says, “Hey Cas.”

“Olle,” the angel responds. “Do you need something?”

“Nah, Cas, I'm good. I'm almost there. I was thinking, it shouldn't take me more than an hour and it's only a couple hours to Wichita. You wanna meet me there this afternoon?” Olle hopes Cas will tell him where he is and then agree to stay put until he gets there. 

“Metatron is dangerous, Olle,” the angel says seriously. “It isn't safe for you to come with me. That's why I've decided to go alone.”

“What?” Olle asks, feigning shock. “Where are you Cas?”

“I'm in Wichita now, at a coffee shop near where the footage was shot,” the angel says. 

“Stay there Cas, I'll meet you this afternoon,” Olle says seriously. “Please,” he pleads. 

“I don't see the harm in doing this alone. I am an angel. Metatron is only human now,” Cas says. 

Olle can tell by the inflection of the angel's voice, he believes Olle does not trust him to get the job done. He has to do something, he thinks, about Cas' feelings of inferiority. “I don't think you'll screw this up Cas, but he managed to hide a long, long fucking time and totally evade the apocalypse. He's crafty, and he's evil to his core. I know you can do this, but I'd feel better about it if you had back-up.” He takes a deep breath and tries a different approach, “What will Dean do to me if something happens to you?”

Cas thinks about that for a full minute before he says, “It is true he cannot hurt you, even if he kills you, and, if something were to happen, no one would know what happened to me or where I was. When can you meet me?” the angel asks. 

Olle breathes a sigh of relief, “I'll have my motorcycle and I'll be there in a few hours. Just, tell me where you are.” When Olle hangs up the phone he considers going to find something to drink, but he is worried Cas will wonder off or Metatron will show himself and force his hand, so he stays where he is. Thankfully, he grabbed a bottle of water before he left; it was in case he needed to make Holy Water on the fly, but he is thirsty. 

For nearly three agonizing hours, Olle sits in the back of the parking lot, across the street, watching the coffee shop and killing the battery on his phone texting with Beth while she feeds him information about Marv; gained by hacking the TV station's financial records. When he walks into the coffee shop, he lets the hostess know he is meeting someone before moving through the restaurant and plopping down across from Cas in the back. 

The angel has a bored look on his face and he is nursing what Olle suspects, from the irate look on the waitress's face, is his first cup of coffee. He makes a note to tip her, well, when they leave. “You got here awfully quickly,” the angel says. 

“I drove awfully quickly, as well, Cas,” Olle says. “I had a friend do me a favor and dig up some information on Marv,” Olle says. “I have an address and vehicle registration.”

“So you know where to find him?” the angel asks.

Olle nods and motions for the waitress, who is standing a polite distance away; glancing at the menu he says, “Can I get a double espresso in a large coffee with six sugars and half and half, a cinnamon roll, and the spring mix salad with chicken.” The girls smiles at him and he stops her as she turns, “Oh, I'm sorry, a glass of water and my friend will take a refill. Thank you.” When she heads back through the restaurant, Olle turns to Cas, “You sitting here for hours nursing a single cup of coffee is rude and it cuts into the money that girl will make during her shift. Minimum wage for servers in Kansas is only $2.13 an hour. Why don't you eat?” he asks, confused look on his face. “Gabe ate,” he says remembering to use past tense. 

Cas looks contrite, but says, “When I was human, I enjoyed food. Now, all I taste is molecules and it is overwhelming. I didn't know how little she made,” he finishes. 

“I need to eat,” Olle says nodding his thanks when the girl returns with beverages and his cinnamon roll. “We can check out his place after.” He sits the cinnamon roll aside for dessert and nurses the coffee while waiting on his salad. “They're supposed to track their tip-out and the restaurant is supposed to back up and pay them the equivalent of standard minimum wage if they don't make that, but most places don't and most servers don't know the law,” he says just trying to make conversation. 

“Sounds complicated,” the angel says. “When I was human, I never understood how so many of you make so little and still manage to live. I wasn't the only homeless person I knew who had a job and still couldn't afford basic necessities.”

Olle nods, “I have been very, very fortunate to always have a way to make ends meet. My adoptive parents were older when they took me in and had both been fortunate enough to maintain successful, lucrative careers. My own success as a surgeon has made it possible for me to live extremely comfortably and, I'll admit, I'm spoiled when it comes to a certain standard of living.”

Cas smiles then, “Hunting, then, and the way hunters live, must have been quite the shock to your system.”

Olle chuckles, grinning, “I worked with Doctor's Without Boarders, and I spent years in the military. As a hunter, the sheets aren't always clean, but not everyone around you is trying to blow you up just for doing your job. Besides,” he shrugs, “sheets aren't always clean those other places either.”

The two continue to make idle conversation while Olle eats, ordering three more coffee/espresso combinations, the last one to go, with another cinnamon roll; the first one was really good. He tips their waitress $100, in cash, and writes an apology on the ticket, for taking up the table, before they walk outside, across the street, to Olle's motorcycle.


	5. Chapter 5

Olle sits down on the bike and hands Cas his sunglasses. The angel takes them while Olle slips his helmet on and, putting them on, asks, “What do I need these for?”

Turning to look up at the angel, Olle says, “Kansas law requires everyone have, at least, shatterproof eye wear. Get on and we'll go check out Marv's apartment.” Olle puts the visor down on his helmet and pats the back of the bike. 

Cas starts to swing his leg over the back of the bike before he stops, buttons his coat, and slowly perches behind Olle. “How is this supposed to work?” he asks not sure where to put his hands. 

Olle laughs and says over his shoulder, “Put your hands on my shoulders, relax, and hang on.”

The angel does as commanded and the twenty minute ride to Marv's apartment is easy. Cas finds he is enjoying himself; it is similar to the feeling of moving through dimensions during angelic travel, though much, much slower. When they get to the building, Olle is reluctant to leave his bike, the neighborhood is less than ideal, but he cheats just a bit by nicking his thumb and drawing a concealing glyph on the tank so no one will see the motorcycle where he leaves it in the alley. 

They find Marv's van, and Cas' car, for sale by owner sign taped to the window, in the small parking lot behind the building. Olle motions for Cas to come back down the alley so they can talk without being seen by anyone inside the building. Concealed in a doorway, where they have a clear view of the scribe's van, Olle says, “Going in there while he is here is a bad idea. There are innocent bystanders, he could run, or fight, and anyone could call the cops on us if we make a scene.”

“What, then, do you suggest we do?” the angel asks. 

Olle thinks for a minute, wanting to make sure he puts Cas in absolutely no danger, and believes he has come up with a good plan, “We wait for him to leave, he is bound to eventually, and go in with FBI badges. We search his place, getting the Demon Tablet back should be first priority.”

“One of us should follow him,” Cas says, making perfect sense, but Olle hates that. 

“I'll follow him,” the big man says. “If something happens, all I have to do is pray to you.”

“I'll stay here, then, and search his apartment for any information on the demon tablet,” he says turning to look back at the building. 

“I should search his van,” Olle says. “If anyone catches me, if he sees me, he has no idea who I am.” Cas nods and Olle stalks back across the street, into the parking lot. 

Pulling his toolkit from his back left pocket, where it stays, Olle moves confidently through the parking lot and, when he was sure no one is looking, ducks behind the van to pop the lock. Tucking the toolkit away, he pulls a penlight from the same pocket and clambers inside the van, shutting the door behind himself. Sending Cas may have been a better idea, Olle thinks, as he is trying to fit himself into the back of the van without being seen from the front windows, that face the building. Immediately, he sees a police scanner where the radio should be and a dozen or more different hand held cameras piled inside empty plastic milk crates. Searching through the crates he finds nothing of import so he moves to the front, crouched down as best as possible, to search beneath the seats, inside the glove box, and to dig through the dirty cardboard box full of only mostly empty coffee cups, other trash, and scribbled addresses or directions. 

When he makes his way back across the street, he stops to stretch, being crunched in the back of the van for almost an hour was killing his back, stopping in front of Cas he says, “I found nothing that helps us, but,” he holds up his dirty, sticky, coffee covered hands, “can you clean me up?”

Cas smiles, amused, and reaches out to touch Olle's forehead, “There.”

“Thanks Cas,” Olle says leaning against the wall, dwarfing the angel. 

Cas moves, subtly, to the other side of the doorway and stares at the building as the door opens and a group of women come out. He turns back to Olle who is watching these ladies, before checking his watch, and following their progress down the far length of the alley. “Something important about those women?” Cas wants to know. 

“Nah,” Olle says shaking his head. “It's four o'clock, it's a bit early, but nights are starting to get cold and they probably don't wanna be out to all hours.” 

Cas gives the big man a confused look, “What are you talking about?”

Olle smiles, “They're prostitutes Cas,” he says with a chuckle. “Actually,” an idea occurs to him, “they may be able to give us some information.” Olle pulls out his wallet and counts his cash, a little over two hundred in twenties, “How much cash you got?” 

Cas hands him sixty dollars from his wallet, Olle is a little amazed at how mundane the gesture is for a minute, but he is brought back to himself when Cas asks, “What are you going to do?”

“I'm not sure they'll talk to me Cas,” Olle says. “My size tends to put people off and if they are afraid of me they won't talk to me.”

“You want me,” he asks, shocked, “to proposition them?” He takes a step back when Olle hands him all the cash and shakes his head, “You've mentioned reading the prophet's books so, you know how well that worked the last time.”

“I'm not asking you to sleep with any of them Cas,” Olle says seriously. “Unless you want to, of course,” the angel gives him such a scathing look he has to stifle not only a grin but boisterous laughter. “Okay, sorry, but just talk to them, a couple at a time,” Olle starts to break up the money into groups before reaching out to stick different allotments into different pockets. “Offer them each forty for their time, even if they don't give you information. If any of them are helpful, give them sixty. They'll take it, this early in the day, that'll put them ahead for the coming night.”

“What do I do? How do I get them to talk to me?” Cas asks hesitant, paniced, totally unsure of himself. 

Olle looks at him for a moment, wondering how anyone could not want to talk to him, before he steps closer to straighten the angel's clothes, buttoning his shirt, fixing his tie, and smoothing his jacket, before running his hands through his hair in a futile attempt to calm it. Stepping back, he notices one more thing and asks, “You still have Jimmy's wedding ring?”

Cas looks down at his finger and pulls his wallet back out, “I was going to give it to Claire, but I keep forgetting.” He pulls the ring out and slips it on, “Why is this so important?”

“Johns don't take off their rings when they do this, even if they feel guilty,” Olle says, “and you look plenty guilty.”

“What does that have to do with me questioning the prostitutes?” Cas asks curiously. 

Olle does laugh then, “Asking them questions, instead of getting them to suck you off down the alley, means they'll think you're a cop. No ring on means you're a cop who is trying to be a John. Give me your badge, too. And don't,” he thinks to say, “call them prostitutes. They are people and they are doing a job harder than most.”

Cas hands him the FBI badge Dean made for him years ago and says, “Don't lose that,” seriously, before he straightens up and starts down the alley. He stops after a few steps and turns back to say, “Are you sure this is a good idea?” What he means, Olle can tell, is, 'Do you think I can do this?'

“It's the only one I've got. Just ask them if they know him, if they see him come and go and, if so, when. Find out if he ever preaches to them or pays them. Find out if they know where he goes when he leaves, where he hangs out, if he has any friends or enemies. You'll do great Cas,” Olle says with what he hopes is an encouraging smile. 

He thinks the angel seems more confident when he turns and disappears down the alley. Olle lets out a simple, silent prayer to no one in particular, hoping no one he knows hears it, that Cas has no problems. Anything, he begs, just to boost his confidence, please, he thinks to himself over and over for the long hour and a half the angel is gone. 

**

Walking down the alley, Cas refuses to think about what he is about to do. It took him a few minutes to find the women he was searching for, but they were only a couple of blocks over from their building. Spread out along a stretch of semi-busy street, they mingled with a few other women who seemed to be doing the same job. 

'The oldest profession in the world,' that is what humans called it, he thought to himself. Of all the things he remembers about Humanity, the advent of prostitution eluded him. “Too busy contemplating the perfection of the amoeba,” he mumbled to himself glumly. 

Deep breath in, he exhaled slowly as he approached the first woman he needed to talk to. “Hello,” he said in that gravel deep voice and the woman turned, giving him a slow once over. 

Hispanic, about five two with long hair pulled up in a crazy mess of braids and pins, wearing six inch heels, a denim ultra-mini skirt, and a yellow halter top with a denim half-jacket, the woman smiles at him before saying, “Hello yourself, handsome.” 

Cas suddenly has that sinking feeling again, like there is too much open space around him, and he tries to take a deep breath, to calm himself down, but he can't seem to draw in air and the woman in front of him is starting to get a worried look on her face. Instead of taking a step back, though, like he thought she would, she comes further into his space and reaches out to him, her arm on his shoulder, she asks, “Are you okay?”

The angel nods his head, her proximity seems to help, and the touch on his arm started to calm him down almost immediately. “Thank you,” he wheezes out of still too tight lungs. “I'm doing better.” Several of the other women have gathered around them now, he sees, asking his savior if everything is alright. “I wanted to ask you all,” he gets out, much better now, “about Marv, who drives the blue van, and lives in your building.”

“You don't look like a cop honey,” a tall black woman says. “What's up?”

Cas is much calmer now, and he feels confident enough to continue. “I'm not a cop. He stole something from me and I just want it back.”

“Slimy bastard seems the type,” another woman says, to nods of agreement all around. 

The rest of his conversation is smooth sailing and, after giving each woman the $60 Olle gave him, he makes his way back to where the big man is waiting for him.


	6. Chapter 6

When Cas appears at the mouth of the alley, headed toward Olle's position, still hidden in the doorway, he is, as always, too stoic to gauge. He slides into the doorway beside Olle and is silent only seconds but long enough to make Olle fidget and ask, expectantly, “How'd it go?”

Cas takes his time taking Jimmy's ring off and replacing it in his vessel's wallet before he takes the badge Olle hands to him on instinct and, putting it back in his breast pocket, says, “They don't like him at all, though he has never tried to associate with them in any way.”

“I sure as Hell wouldn't want to go near him,” Olle says. “Anything else?”

“More than one of the women said she sees him coming out of the Pawn Shop across the street a few times a week,” Cas says. “They had no idea what he could have been doing in there, but surely he wouldn't pawn the Demon Tablet.” Cas says it like he is not entirely convinced. 

Olle shakes his head, unsure himself what the smarmy man would do, and asks, “Do any of them have any idea when he leaves at night and what time he gets back?”

“All of them said they usually see his van leave around eight and not return until early the next morning,” the angel says. 

Olle breathes a sigh of relief at that and decides to go check out the Pawn Shop. Leaving Cas in the alley, Olle walks down the block to a corner store and uses their ATM before making his way back to the Pawn Shop. 

**

Coming through the door, a bell jingles and Olle looks around, glass cases and firearms line one side of the shop and a single six foot shelf of odds and ends sits against the other wall, an isle leading to the counter at the back. Olle thought about offering to pay the guy off, but one look around lets him know whoever works here would not be honest no matter how much money he gave them. Browsing for a minute, Olle gets the layout of the place and is sure he has a good exit strategy before he makes his way to the back and pulls his FBI badge. 

“Can I help you?” a middle-aged man with a Mexican accent asks.

Olle lays his badge on the counter and slides it across for the man to see, “I'm looking for some information,” he says casually, “about a man, Marv, who does business here often. Short, very short by my standards,” Olle chuckles, “with dark curly hair and maybe a beard.”

The broker takes a long look at Olle's badge and suddenly forgets how good his English was moments ago, “No English,” he says in a suddenly much thicker accent.

Olle smiles, predatory, and switches to Spanish, “That's okay, I just need to know what he's been in here getting rid of.” Olle puts his badge away and goes on, “You think you can help me out? I know he lives right across the street and I know he comes in here, a lot. What's he selling?” 

“Mostly junk,” the man reluctantly says in Spanish. Coming around the counter, he points to random things lining the shelves and a few higher end items behind the counter, but nothing like anything Olle is looking for. “He comes in a couple times a week and always haggles over whatever I offer. He doesn't say much else, says he goes to rummage sales and does a lot of dumpster diving for the stuff he brings me.”

Olle snorts, pointing at a car radio the man indicated Marv had pawned, “Sure he does.” He follows the guy to the back of the shop again and goes on, “When was the last time he came in?”

“Four days ago,” the man says. 

Olle nods, “Thanks.” Pulling out is wallet, he points at a hand-held police scanner and says, “That got a good battery?” After a few negotiations, Olle leaves the shop with a fully functional radio and a few new knives.

Stopping down the alley, to check on his bike, he pulls open the saddlebag to store the new knives and notices a Witch's Collar just laying in the bottom. Pulling out his phone, he fires off a text to Beth who quickly tells him she figured he would forget to pack it and may run into Rowena again and need it. He chuckles before putting his phone away and heading back to Cas and their hiding spot. It looks like the angel is in the exact same spot he was when Olle left, almost an hour ago. It is finally starting to get dark, though, so hopefully Metatron will make his way away soon.

“What is that?” the angel asks when Olle turns on the scanner and starts looking for the correct frequency. 

“It's a digital radio scanner,” Olle says finding what he was looking for and turning the volume down so it would not echo in the alley. “Metatron has been video taping crime ahead of the cops and he has a scanner in the van. If I hear what he hears, he'll be easier to find.”

“I thought you were going to follow him,” Cas says. 

Olle shrugs, “I'm almost seven feet tall and I'm riding a custom, vintage bike. If I stick to him like glue, he'll spot me in a second.”

“This is much more complicated than I thought it would be. We know he is in there,” Cas says exasperated. “Why don't we just go in there and confront him?”

“Okay Cas,” Olle says, “but has he angel proofed the apartment? Does he have Holy Oil? Or an angel blade? Does he have a gun? Would he use any kind of spells or hexbags?” Olle is trying not to make him feel unprepared, but he also wants to make sure they make it through this without Olle praying to Lucifer for assistance or Cas being hurt. “You said, yourself, he left Heaven the first chance he got and everyone thought he was dead. That means he's been hiding for all of human history, that's a long time to get good at protecting yourself.”

“You're right,” Cas says reluctantly. “He is far too cleaver not to have planned ahead. All of Heaven is hunting him, not only us, and he will have taken precautions.”

Olle sighs internally, relieved. “So, we wait for him to leave and both go check out his place. If it isn't warded against angels, I take off.”

“If it is,” Cas says, “I can follow him.”

“If it is Cas,” Olle says seriously, “what do you say I search the place and we come back next week with the bothers?”

Cas shakes his head, “That puts them in unnecessary danger when I can heal and you...”

Olle knows what he was about to say and finishes his sentence, “I'm an acceptable casualty when I can't, really, die.”

Cas gets an uncomfortable look on his face even thought that was, clearly, what he was about to say. “I'm sorry,” the angel starts. 

Again, Olle stops him mid-sentence, “It's okay Cas,” he says with a smile. “I understand. It's nothing I don't know. I'd rather die a thousand times than get either of them, get anyone else, hurt. It's okay.”

Cas nods though Olle is not convinced he believes him, which is sad, because it is true. “If you search his apartment and do not find the Demon Tablet, we will return at a later date with Sam and Dean.”

“Fair enough,” Olle says. “If he has the Demon Tablet hidden so haphazardly then he may be slipping. I'll consent to staying if he doesn't seem to be making this hard on us. Just remember,” Olle cautions, “some things are too good to be true and the other shoe always drops, eventually.” The angel says nothing but nods his agreement and the two wait out their time in the alley in silence until just after eight-thirty when they see Metatron, Marv, slip out the door of the building and drive away. 

With a jerk of his head, Olle indicates they should make their way back across the alley to the building. Once inside, they go up the stairs and stop outside the former angel's derelict apartment. Olle reaches out, slowly, searching for magick or warding but he can feel nothing so he turns to the angel and asks, “Do you feel anything? Is the apartment warded?”

“It doesn't seem to be,” the angel says. “Let's go inside and see.” Reaching out, Cas takes hold of the doorknob, unlocking it with his Grace, and steps inside before Olle can utter a word of caution. 

Olle follows, quickly behind, to find Cas standing, stuck, in a ring of warding carved directly into the ceiling. The warding Cas is trapped in is old magick, benign and undetectable until activated. He steps around the angel and begins to search the rest of the apartment. He quickly finds Holy Oil, poorly made but effective, waiting to be ignited by the activation of another warding, carved into the floor this time. “You're lucky I haven't let you out yet,” Olle says using a knife to unmake the warding on the floor. “If this was at all unstable, the whole building would go up in flames.” Olle finds a few other equally clever traps and disables them all before he reaches up and, standing on tip toes, cuts a line through the warding so Cas can step free. 

“Thank you,” the angel says. “Have you found anything?”

“I was waiting for you before I got to serious looking. I was mainly just looking for traps and warding,” Olle says. 

The two begin to search in earnest. It takes them no time at all to find the Demon Tablet, hidden inside the mattress on Metatron's bed. “He has bedbugs,” the angel says distastefully, pulling the Demon Tablet out of the hole he cut with his angel blade. 

“You can tell him that when we see him,” Olle says searching through drawers and checking under them and inside the empty chest. “I've got nothin'” he says, watching Cas search. 

“The Demon Tablet was the only thing Metatron had that was of any value,” Cas says stopping to survey the thoroughly ransacked apartment. 

“We have the tablet Cas,” Olle says. “Do you want to go? Do you want to wait for him to come back? Do you think he could really know anything of any import?”

“He was the one angel who spent the most time with God,” Cas says seriously, like Olle should have known that. “He may have information about the Darkness that could help us defeat her.”

Olle is so tempted to drag the angel away after seeing, first hand, Metatron remembers the old magick; that makes him very dangerous. The problem, he reminds himself, is Cas has no idea Olle already knows who she is and Gabriel and Lucifer have a pretty good idea of what she wants. With a deep breath, he says, “I'm sorry Cas, you're right. We should find a neutral place and talk to him.”

The angel nods and they go back outside the building and down the alley to Olle's bike. Olle sits and turns up the radio, waiting. It was on at a dull murmur before, but he had not heard anything more than a few traffic stops and domestic disputes; nothing that would pique Metatron's interest. About twenty minutes later, Olle hears a report of shots fired with a possible victim. 

“It's in downtown,” Cas says seriously, “we'll never make it if he's there. I'm going,” he says before he vanishes.


	7. Chapter 7

Olle curses under his breath before throwing the radio in the saddlebag and pulling on his helmet. By the time Olle gets to the address, the cops are everywhere and he wishes he looked more like the FBI agent his badge said he was than the hunter he is. It takes a few stern looks before the paramedics believe the badge, but he gets the victim alone and asks, “What happened? Where did they go?” He saw the blood, too much blood, on the ground and, by the look of this guy, Cas had to have healed him. 

“I don't know what you're talking about man, I really don't,” the guy says wide eyed, shaking his head. 

“The creep with the camera and the trench coat clad angel who healed you,” Olle says at a low growl. “Where'd they go?”

“Is that really what I saw?” he asks. “I don't know,” he says shaking his head a little more sure of his surroundings now, “they just disappeared.”

“Fuck!” Olle swears before calling the paramedics back over and slipping away across the street to his bike. “Where the fuck are you Cas?” he asks the ether, knowing the angel heard him. “Luce,” he says in the next breath, “I've lost him again and he's in trouble, I know it!”

The devil doesn't actually appear but Olle finds himself standing behind a shelf of mostly scrap metal in an empty warehouse and he hears Cas and another man, obviously Metatron, talking. Olle listens as Cas beats the truth out of Metatron and is glad the angel seems to be holding his own. As Cas turns to go, Olle, satisfied the angel was doing well on his own, notices, too late, Metatron is throwing a hexbag at Cas' back. With a few muttered words, too low for Olle to hear, the bag explodes when it touches Cas and the angel drops to his knees, crying out in pain before he falls forward into a seizure that last almost a minute before he lies still. Marv drops back to the cement floor, bloody, beaten, and broken. Olle goes over, in a panic, trying to calm himself down enough not to kill the son of a bitch before he figures out how to help the angel. 

Picking the human up, he shakes him awake with an agonizing groan and says, “Metatron, you fucker, what did you do?”

Even in agony, the former angel laughs, “Magick that old, he'll be dead before any of you figure out what I've done.” Bloody grin showing, Olle doesn't speak, he just hits the man on the temple, knocking him unconscious. 

Olle kneels down and gathers what is left of the hexbag in his hand before wrapping it in the cloth from his pocket. Crawling over to Cas, Olle rolls the angel over onto his back and examines him. Unconscious, Cas was breathing shallowly and his heart was erratic in its pace. Olle thought, hard, about the contents of the hexbag, what he could decipher of it from the glance he gave it, and shook his head. “Luce,” Olle prays, “I need my bike and Metadick's van. And I need your brother,” he whispers shaking his head when Lucifer appears. 

“They are outside,” the archangel says. “Do I need to get him?” he asks about Gabriel. 

“No,” Olle says with a grunt, getting to his feet carrying Cas bridal style. “Grab Metatron and follow me.” Once outside, Olle puts Cas in the front seat of the van and goes over to his bike, he pulls out the Witch's Collar and secures Metatron with that and handcuffs before letting Lucifer dump him behind the driver's seat in the van. “Can you tie that,” he points to his bike, “down in the back of the van, please?”

With a snap, it is done and Lucifer says, “Cas is not well. What did he do to him?” There is an undercurrent of concern and anger in his voice and he puts his hand on his brother's chest through the open window and tries his best to heal him. 

“I'm not sure yet,” Olle says. “I have the hexbag, what's left of it, and I'm going to peel his skin off if he refuses to tell me what he said when he threw it at Cas.”

“I can heal Metatron,” Lucifer says. 

Olle shakes his head, “Just enough so he doesn't die and he can talk to me. Cure any internal injuries, major broken bones, and head trauma, but that's it.”

“I'm not sure I can,” Lucifer says hesitantly. 

“It's about focus and controlling your Grace. It's just like healing me, but you think about it.” Olle stops for a minute trying to figure out how to help him relate. “You liked the slow burn torture?” At the angel's unhappy nod, Olle goes on, “I'll tell you what I did to Alistair sometime, you'll forgive yourself and hate me a little; I promise. It's putting things back together instead of ripping them apart. Try it,” Olle says to Lucifer's skeptical look. Olle chuckles, “You fuck it up, I'll kick the shit out of him again, don't worry.” Lucifer huffs an uneasy laugh before opening the side door on the van and laying his hand on the former scribe's head.

After a moment, the angel pulls back and says, “I think that'll do it.”

Olle claps him on the back with a grin, and says, “Good job!”

“Now,” the angel says, back in his comfort zone, “I can get you all back to the Bunker.”

“Cas' car,” Olle says. “He really wanted it back.” Olle shakes his head, “It's stupid, I'll come back for it.”

With a snap, the car is hooked to the van on a tow dolly and Olle laughs. “Get in the van and I'll send you back.”

“If the guys are back I need them to think I drove,” Olle says sliding in the driver's seat. 

“They aren't,” Lucifer says immediately. 

“Okay. Luce,” he says sticking his hand out the window toward the angel, “until I know if he is going to live, don't tell your brother.” Lucifer nods, once, then snaps.


	8. Chapter 8

Olle blinks and is in the Bunker's garage, Lucifer waiting for him, Sam and Dean not back yet. “Take your brother to the hospital wing,” Olle says getting out of the van and going around to open the side door. “It's down the corridor, through the war room, past the kitchens and the dinning room. You can stop in triage, that's fine, the rest of it is still a mess.” Lucifer nods and, with a snap, they are gone. 

Olle grabs Metaron by the ankle and pulls him out of the van to land on his back on the garage floor. With a yelp, then a moan, the man says, “How long was I out?”

“Long enough,” Olle says pulling him to his feet and shoving him toward the door. Taking the vile man down to the holding cell in room 7B, Olle chains him to the chair, leaving the cuffs and the collar where they are, and leaves him alone in the dark. 

In the infirmary, Lucifer stands by Cas' bed looking worried and helpless. The archangel looks up when Olle opens the door and says, “I can't leave, I think proximity to my Grace is the only thing keeping him alive right now.”

Olle nods coming over to look the angel over. “I need to call Sam and Dean,” he says pulling a tray to the bedside and spreading out the salvages of Metatron's hexbag. “Dean is going to beat me bloody and broken when he finds out I let Cas get hurt.”

“I know you asked me not to, but I really should call Gabriel,” Lucifer says quietly. Olle nods and the archangel pulls out his phone, moving to the opposite end of the room so Olle cannot hear the conversation. 

Olle examines the broken, burnt pieces before him, trying his damnedest not to listen to Lucifer talk to Gabriel, and thinks he has a good idea of what Metatron was trying to do. A piece of dragon fang, the burnt tip of an angel feather, and, he stopped and reached out to touch the smallest scrap to survive; it was... “Lucifer,” he says afraid, “Luce, man, come tell me I'm wrong, please God come tell me I'm wrong!”

The intake of breath when the angel appears behind him is enough to make Olle clench his eyes closed while the angel says, “Gabriel, we've got it under control. If something changes, I'll call you. I have to go brother.” When Lucifer hangs up on his little brother, he reaches out his index finger to touch the offending piece of what looks like volcanic glass, it sticks to his finger when he pulls away and, dusting it back onto the tray, he says, “Where did the Scribe get a piece of the Great Eye?”

“What matters is, a piece of the twelve, a piece of the eye; there is no way he could have had the blood or Cas would be dead.” Olle gets up and stalks across the room, this spell was old, old magick; magick he created when he wore the Mark. No one should even remember it. 

“How did he even know?” Lucifer asks, shocked. 

“I'll find out later, right now, it doesn't matter,” Olle says furiously. “I can fix this, but it will weaken him, even more so than he is now.”

“I can stay, as long as he needs me to,” Lucifer says immediately. 

Olle nods, knowing this is, possibly, a bad idea and heads to the garage again, needing a book he brought; Sam will want a reference to prove Olle knew what he was doing. 

Back in the infirmary, Olle drops the book on the bed by Cas and reaches out his hand to the angel's forehead; he tries to reach out to him, to that part of the angel capable of communicating with him psychically, but he finds nothing but burning, ripping pain. “Dammit!” Olle turns and strides back out of the room toward the apothecary, Lucifer on his heels. 

“What are you going to do? What, exactly, will this do to him?” the archangel wants to know.

While he speaks, Olle rummages through drawers, jars, bags and cupboards in the giant room, just down the hall from the infirmary, “You acted like you remembered?”

“I know it is meant to burn out an angel's ability to contain Grace; without a vessel the angel dies, their Grace released into Creation without purpose. That can do terrible things,” Lucifer says. 

“It can rip Creation apart,” Olle says remembering. At Lucifer's sharp intake of breath, the Ancestor nods, “That is how we did it. It was supposed to be Metatron, dangerous bastard even then, but he fled.”

“Who,” he asks not really wanting to know.

Olle stops, hands full of ingredients, “Azazel,” he smiles ruefully, “that's why he hated me so. Fallen ruled Hell until Crowley came along; after what we did, he became just another demon.”

“What will this do to Cas?” the devil wants to know.

Olle stops again, thinking, and begins to speak as he returns to his search, “Inside a vessel, it will bind him to the vessel. If the vessel is strong enough, and his is, he'll live. What he'd be, though, angel or human or some combination thereof; I don't know.”

As Olle gathers up his ingredients, they hear an agonizing scream echo through the Bunker and Olle takes off at a run while Lucifer disappears. Careening back into the infirmary, jumping to clear the steps by several feet, Olle sees Lucifer straddle his brother, using arms and legs to hold him down while he thrashes. “Don't let him see you,” Olle calls out as he dumps his arm full of ingredients on a nearby bed and comes over to put his hand on the writhing angel's forehead and speaks to him, “Dammit Cas! Listening to me would have been a really awesome thing to do!”

The angel's eyes fly open at the sound of his name and he groans before saying, “What is going on? What is wrong with me?” The end of his sentence is cut off by a loud, painful moan. 

Olle smiles, glad Cas is semi-conscious at least, “It is a curse Cas. An old, old curse from what I can tell. I'm questioning Metatron and I'm going to figure this out. I need you to let me give you something to help you sleep, will that even work on you?” 

The angel is breathing heavy, eyes roaming all over the room, and Lucifer has moved to stand by his bed but Cas is still and he says quietly, “I have no idea, but you're welcome to try if it will stop the pain.”

Olle nods and goes over, not to the drug cabinet but to the box from the apothecary, and starts to mix ingredients. “Can you move at all Cas? I need you to take your coat, jacket, and shirt off. I can help,” he says sitting down his concoction and pulling everything he needs for a saline IV out of the cabinet. Coming back over to the bed, Olle watches Lucifer fidget in the corner, desperate to help his little brother, and, with a thought, suggests he goes to Sam's room and finds the books he was reading. 

“What are you going to do?” the angel asks as he sits up on the side of the bed, slowly, clearly in pain. “What did Metatron do to me?”

“I bound him with a Witch's Collar and it seemed to work. He told me it was an old spell, used at the beginning of Creation, to destroy an angel's ability to contain Grace,” Olle says drawing his mixture into a large syringe and pumping it into the bag of saline, turning the water a bright purple before it faded to dark blue. 

“He is making me human again?” Cas asks, voice laced with pain. Olle catches him as he slides off the edge of the bed and helps him stand and divest of the necessary clothes. Kicking his shoes off, an oddly human gesture Olle thinks, he lays back down on the bed. 

Olle starts to adjust the height and tilt of the bed, making it easier for him to tend to Cas at his height, while answering Cas' previous question. “I have a book,” he picks it up and hands it to Cas, “that says it will kill you and release your Grace into the world. If your vessel is strong enough, though, you could just be stuck in there for the remains of a mortal life.” Olle shakes his head, though, and goes on, “I've never seen circumstances like this before, though. No one alive, I'd say, has ever seen this before.”

Cas squints at the book before laying it down to say, “I'm not well enough to read, right now.”

Everything is quiet, Lucifer returned to sit on the opposite bed and read while watching Olle give Cas his IV. Once the blue liquid is making it way into Cas' veins, the angel starts to relax and drifts into unconsciousness. Olle mixes another batch of the same ingredients, setting it aside, before he covers Cas with a sheet and a blanket and goes over to talk to the archangel. 

“He'll rest and he shouldn't be in any pain. I've slowed it down, as best I'm able for now,” Olle says quietly. 

“How do you reverse it?” Lucifer asks. 

“I need the blood of the caster, my blood, the piece of the Eye; hoping it's big enough. Those are all easy finds, I've got them right here. A mark of the twelve is easy too, I have drawers full of them at home.” Olle sighs then, however, and scratches his head, “The last bit, the Grace of an angel, willingly sacrificed, in place of Cas' Grace; I have no idea where I'll find that.”

“What about me?” Lucifer asks seriously. “If anyone deserves to be unmade by this, it's me.”

Olle shakes his head, knowing when he mentioned it where this was leading. “If it were that simple I never would have suggested it, knowing what you would offer. The Grace needs to be contained within Cas, not his vessel his true form, during the ritual; your Grace,” Olle says.

“Would rip him apart,” Lucifer finishes and Olle nods. 

“The only angel I know who would have done it is Hannah, and she is dead,” Olle says. “It has to be willingly given and Cas is as hunted, hated, as Metatron; maybe more so.”

“You unmade me,” Lucifer says after a moments thought. “Ripped me apart, Grace and form, then put me back together. I'm stronger now than I have been since before I locked my aunt away; you did that,” he says like he has an idea. “Could you do the same thing to him?” he asks looking over at Cas.

Olle is unsure, but willing to try. “The whole thing would have to be consciously consented to. I'd have to put his body on life support, Jimmy has been dead for years. He would have to agree, have to take possession of me purposefully.” Olle shakes his head, “I'm still not sure it would work.”

“But would it hurt?” Lucifer asks.

Olle has no idea how to answer that so he says, “I need Sam and Dean.” Lucifer nods, knowing Olle has made his choice, is going to try. Pulling his cell phone out, Sam answers on the second ring and Olle barely gives him a chance to acknowledge he is there, “Sam, how's the hunt?”

“It took a weird turn, but we're okay. Should be headed back soon, why?” the hunter says curious, worried. 

Olle takes a deep breath and tells him, “I went to KC and got some of my stuff. Cas and I were talking about Metatron. How's the case? You said two days,” he trails off. 

“It's weird,” Sam says with a laugh, “having someone else out there to worry. Sorry man, it's okay, we're okay.”

“Good,” Olle says. “Good, look, when I got back yesterday afternoon, Cas was gone.”

“What's happened?” the hunter asks quietly. 

“Cas has been hurt, Sam. Hurt pretty bad,” Olle says evenly. 

“How bad is pretty bad Olle?” Sam needs to know. Dean must not be with his brother, because Olle know he wold be screaming in the background.

“He is asleep right now,” Olle says. “He was unconscious for a while on our way back from Wichita, but he was awake earlier and I gave him something to help him sleep. He said he was in pain and the sleep would help.”

“We aren't finished here, yet,” Sam says. Olle can tell he is thinking, trying to figure out what to do, how to tell Dean. 

“Just, just finish up,” Olle says. “We'll see you guys in a couple days.”

“Let me know if anything changes,” the hunter says. 

“Of course. Bye Sam.” Olle hangs up and Lucifer looks at him like he killed a spider with his book. “Don't look at me like that,” Olle says guiltily. “They aren't even on their way back yet. They're no good to me and he'd be dead before they got here if we don't do this now.”

“So not telling them their best friend is dying,” he asks sarcastically, “is the way to go? When what we're about to try may actually kill him?”

Olle laughs, “You're doing well. I'm glad. Now, as my friend, I'm telling you to shut the fuck up and help me.” Lucifer smiles, shaking his head, and lays his book down.


	9. Chapter 9

The first thing Olle does is send Lucifer out into the world, via the internet, to order all the medical equipment he needs to keep Cas' vessel alive while he is no longer inside it. The whole point is to find it so Lucifer can turn next day delivery into next second delivery and, before Olle is out of the room, the archangel is filling it with medical equipment. He may have gone overboard with his list of things they need but it is all useful, even if not right now. That done, Olle strides into the dungeon to use the Witch's Collar to force Metatron to tell him about the spell. 

Flipping the lights on, he pulls open the doors and asks, “What did you do to Cas?”

“It was a nasty spell,” Metatron says. “Meant to burn him out, Grace first. He'll die screaming, better than he deserves,” the man sneers. 

Olle 'tsks' shaking his head, leaned against the wall to the man's right. “Where did you find this spell? And what was in the hexbag?”

“It was used by Gabriel in the beginning,” he says. “It was how he killed the nephilim, he needed to destroy the Grace within them.” Metatron shakes his head violently, collar rattling and chains clinking, “Why am I telling you this?”

“The Witch's Collar,” Olle says. “It forces any witch, or magic user, caught within it to be subservient to the one who put the collar on them. You have to tell me the truth, you have do as I say. Now,” Olle barks, “what was in the hexbag?”

With an disgruntle groan, the former angel speaks, “A representation of the twelve sons of Eve, an angel feather touched by the one it was meant to affect, a piece of the Great Eye of Lucifer, wrapped in a piece of leather made of the skin of a Fallen, soaked in Holy Oil, tied with sinew of an Old One, all bathed in the blood of the caster.”

Olle heaves a sigh, of frustration supposedly, but actually of relief; Metatron missed several ingredients crucial to the effectiveness of the spell. “What is the Great Eye of Lucifer?” he ask, needing to know where the man got even the small piece he found. 

“It is a piece of red, yellow veined volcanic glass,” he says. “Supposedly found only in a small part of Antarctica where he was said to have landed when he was cast out. I bought it on eBay, some Tolkien freak has thousands of small pieces like that.”

Olle can deal with that, later, right now he needs to know, “What did you say to Cas as you attacked him? Do you know of any way to reverse this?”

Metatron laughs, “When I decided to use it, I wasn't interested in reversing it. I was hoping it would kill him. There were no magic words, if that's what you're worried about. I was just,” he shrugs with a smile, “telling him goodbye.”

“Okay then,” Olle says with a decisive shake of his head. 

“Hey,” Metatron yells as the big man closes him up in the dungeon. “Hey, what are you doing?”

Olle doesn't answer as he turns the lights off and leaves the man there, headed back to Cas and Lucifer, in the infirmary. 

**

“How'd it go?” Lucifer asks, not looking up from where he is searching for a ventilator. 

Olle goes over and checks Cas, “He bought the tale Michael spun about Gabe and the nephilim. Says that's how he found the spell. At least we know he took it from the catalog in Heaven. I'll question him further about when he came across it and where the catalog is now, later.”

“When,” Lucifer asks out of the blue, “are you going to tell everyone that Crowley is Legion? He could be helpful with this.”

Olle gapes at him for a few seconds before he laughs, coming over to drop down on the bed opposite Lucifer and ask tiredly, “How did you know?”

He shrugs, snapping the chosen ventilator into a corner of the now much more crowded room, “He was the only demon who was at all helpful when I was released from the Cage. He was cunning, ruthless, conniving, self-serving, and far, far too knowledgeable to be just a demon. After everything that happened in Carthage, Death told me.”

“Thanatos really, really hates you,” Olle says shaking his head. “He'll never help us now, not after what Dean did to him.”

“Dean thinks he killed him, doesn't he?” the archangel asks. Olle nods and Lucifer goes on, “Sam keeps praying, to God, about what he's done, asking for help. He still has faith,” Lucifer says shocked by that. “After everything we, I, did to him, to Dean, to humanity; how?”

Olle smiles, impressed by the younger Winchester as well, “I honestly don't know. Sam is,” he struggles for a word, any word, “special.” 

Lucifer nods at that and goes on, “The first time he prayed was when I was still stuck between being real and having a body. I tried to show him, about Michael, but I think I messed that up. I've tried to tell him he is alone, that God isn't helping, but he just keeps praying. I don't know what else to do, but try to ignore him,” he says sadly. “Gabriel keeps telling me we are the answer to his prayers, we just have to bide our time.”

“Do you agree with him?” Olle asks after the devil trails off. At a nod from the oldest living angel, Olle says, “Then, maybe you need to take a step back? If you want to show him anything, you should prepare him for what is coming. Not Amara, you and your brothers, us,” Olle says. “Hint at the need for open mindedness and acceptance of past enemies becoming friends.”

Lucifer shrugs, nodding his head from side to side, “He is still so afraid of me, I can feel it, and he has every right to be.” Lucifer looks up from his screen now, tears in his eyes, “I was so terrible to him. Awful things, I did such awful things, not only to his mind and body, but his soul.”

Olle shifts over to sit behind Lucifer, where he is still Indian style in the middle of the bed, and he pulls him back to chest, like they were in Hell. Holding him closely, he tells him, “For over a hundred thousand years Azazal tortured me in Hell. I can't die, though, and I can't become a demon. I screamed in agony but, eventually, I laughed at him, at all of them, and started to give them pointers as they cut into me. Pain can become familiar, normal. When I stopped crying out in agony, stopped telling the demons and the Fallen how best to accomplish what they were trying to do; when I got bored, that was when Azazal came to me and started to talk to me about what I wanted, and what I had to do for him to get it.” Olle rests his chin on the archangel's head and goes on, “Sam never broke, even when you coerced him into killing Lilith. He never succumbed to you, to anyone. He did what he did to save Dean; those two do terrible, wonderful things to save each other. I'm not ever worried he'll be broken by you, or anyone.”

“You're certain he'll be able to look at me one day and not want me dead? Not cower internally? Not wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of me here; anywhere that isn't where he left me?” Lucifer asks quietly. 

Olle thinks for a long time before he answers, “He doesn't know you. He has no idea who you were before, who you are now. You carry your past Luce, there's no help for it, but you can't wear it; it doesn't fit anymore.” Olle lets him go, slowly, and moves to the foot of the bed so he can look the devil in eye and put his hand on his knee, “Knowing you now, I can't equate you to the mad angel you were during the first war, to the naive, loving, protective angel you were in the beginning, to the Devil who was so insane he killed his own brother and, in his grief, tortured me for trying to save him. You're not the archangel who did those things to him, not anymore.” Lucifer nods, unsure but hopeful, and Olle smiles at him, “Dean will never forgive you and want you dead; until you prove him wrong and the rest of us right, just by being yourself.”

“How can you be so sure?” Lucifer asks.

“Because, when I came face to face with Azazal the first time, after leaving Hell, I laughed at him. The thought of being anywhere near him had terrified me for centuries, but I stood there and I laughed at him,” Olle says proudly. “Dean stood up to Alistair, even though he was terrified. Sam is stronger than Dean, stronger than I will ever be; you won't break him now, you won't break him ever. Not as long as Dean is with him.”

“But that doesn't change the fact that I did all those things,” he says sadly. 

Olle squeezes his knee saying, “I think it is a good idea you do stay here, for a while, once Cas is up and around again. Being around them, when they are totally themselves, will be good for you.” Olle thinks the archangel has Sam and Dean held up as ideal pillars of humanity, saving people, hunting things, sacrificing for family and love, but the truth is much more real than that; for everyone. Watching them eat and sleep and hunt and fight and be flawed and normal, he hopes, will help the angel see how whole Sam is. If he can see that, maybe he can start to forgive himself for things that were no worse than what any other angel would have done, given the opportunity. Things that were, if he is honest with himself, not as bad as what he did during his stint in the pit. 

After a deep, calming breath he does not need, Lucifer asks, “How are you going to do this?”

“I'm gonna wake him up and talk to him, if he can talk to me, then we'll go from there,” Olle says standing up.


	10. Chapter 10

Taking the time to get everything ready, first, should Cas agree to this, gives Olle time to think. Changing Cas' IV bag, putting all the equipment in order, getting everything he will need out, Olle mulls over what else he could do to curb the effects of this spell. He talks to Lucifer while he works, getting everything out of his head, and the angel helps him move things around but he does not speak, knowing Olle needs to pull everything out then stand back and look at it before it makes sense. 

“He should be dead or damaged beyond repair by now, but Metatron was missing key parts of the spell for it to work correctly,” Olle says. “Michael must have left that out, or not known it, when he recorded it. If Cas refuses my help, he may just be able to ride this out with proper pain management, but I doubt his Grace could ever fully recover afterwards.” Olle heaves a sigh, looking around to note the infirmary was now clean and well organized. “I could try to counter the spell, but it would mean convincing an angel to give up their Grace for Cas; I don't think there is anyone left who would do that.” Olle stops then, spent, and looks at Lucifer expectantly; he had listened to the man talk for a couple of hours, Olle needed his opinion.

Lucifer sits on the edge of his brother's bed, placing his hand over Cas' heart and trying to mitigate what damage is being done as best he can. Looking up, he says, “Is this what Michael did to him in that horrible place where Zachariah sent Dean?”

Olle pauses at that, remembering Dean's conversation with the former angel on their way to Kansas City; Cas had said he was 'all but human.' Olle shakes his head, “I had never considered it before, but you could be correct.” Olle huffs an amused, thoughtful laugh, “No wonder he is so fucked up there.”

“If he refuses to allow you to do this,” Lucifer says, “we have to call Gabriel.”

Olle heaves a dark sigh, knowing the archangel is right. “If he refuses, I have to get Sam and Dean back here ASAP. If he refuses,” Olle says seriously, “we may all be getting reacquainted sooner than expected.” Lucifer nods, looking terrified but determined, and Olle sits himself down on the other side of Cas, “Okay, I think I have a plan. Ready to go incognito?”

Nodding, Lucifer waits, watching Olle disconnect his brother's IV and he finds himself praying to his father for the first time in so, so long he can barely even remember. “Dad, this is going to work, right? Olle is going to fix this, fix Cas, and it's all going to be okay, right? I've never done anything to deserve any consideration from You, and Cas has fucked up a lot; a lot, a lot. But Gabriel deserves better, than all of us; don't make him lose Cas all over again, without even getting him back first, please.”

By the time his desperate prayer is finished, Cas is groaning in pain and starting to shift, groggily, in the bed. Olle spreads his giant hand in the middle of Cas' chest, to calm and restrain the angel. “Hey Cas,” he says quietly. The angel stops his uncomfortable struggle and focuses on Olle, “There we go,” the big man smiles. “If you can talk that's fine, but it's okay if you just shake your head. You're going to be in a whole lot of pain, really soon, so I need you to focus and answer my questions quickly.” Cas nods, “Good,” Olle says. “Metatron found the spell he used on you in the Catalog of Time. The way he explained it, it is meant to destroy an angel's ability to contain Grace. He meant to burn you out, kill you, the way Gabriel killed the nephilim. He didn't have everything he needed, though. It still seems to be doing its own fair share of damage, and I'm worried. Do you understand?” Cas nods and Olle goes on, “I showed you this book,” Olle picks it up, “earlier. One of the many, many things I got from your brother. There seems to be a way to reverse the effects, but there is one, huge, setback. The reversal requires the freely given Grace of an angel, to banish the spell.”

Cas takes a few deep, painful, breaths before he grits out, “That would be problematic; I am loathed in the halls of Heaven. My brothers and sisters will not want to save me.”

Olle nods, “I have another idea and you might not like it. I want you to allow me to let you use me as a vessel. I would put your body on life support since it would, technically, be dead once you were no longer inside of it. Then, I want to preform the spell with a portion of your own harvested Grace. The spell doesn't say it requires the full Grace of an angel, only that it requires the Grace as a sacrifice. It would weaken you,” Olle says, “but it wouldn't, I don't think, do half as much damage to you as this will, if we let it continue to work through your system.”

Cas is still, quiet, for so long Olle worries he is lost to pain or whatever is happening inside of him, but the angel finally looks up at him and says, “Have you told Sam and Dean? If something happens, I don't want them to blame you. I want them to know, to hear me say, you did all you could. I want to tell them,” he stops, an agonized groan escaping his lips. “I want them to know,” he goes on, voice laced with pain and resignation, “that this was not your fault.”

Olle understands, but he still wants to smack the angel silly for seemingly already having given up on himself. “I'll call them Cas, right now, but first, you have to promise me, promise me, you aren't giving up! I need you to burrow when you get in there, deep, and lock yourself up so I can get this done. I need you to be willing to let me have control, even if it means giving me the pain, so you can focus on letting go. You can't agree to this thinking it's going to fail, Cas, you can't let me do this and then make me feel you die.”

Eyes tight shut in pain, body tense, the angel nods vigorously before saying, “I promise, I will not stop fighting.”

Olle nods and pulls out his phone to call Sam. When the hunter picks up, as if fate has it in for them, (and she might) Cas groans, ending on a scream of pain. “Dean, pull over, now!” the big man hears Sam command his brother. “What's going on?” the young hunter says into the phone. 

“Sam,” Olle starts calmly, getting up to move away from Cas so he can be heard, “I wasn't fast enough, Sam, I'm sorry,” he says genuinely upset; if he had told them all the truth from the jump this wouldn't be happening. 

“Cas,” Dean's voice breaks and Olle feels like he has been gut punched. 

“He's alive Dean,” Olle reassures them both. “I'm doing my damnedest to make sure he stays that way. Just, he wanted to talk to you both. I wanted to prepare you, first. Just, I'm going to call you back, Sam, with Skype; is that okay?”

“Yeah, Olle,” Sam says. “Just, yeah, now.” The phone goes dead. Olle opens his Skype app and calls Sam, who picks up on the first ring. “Olle, man,” the hunter says, “where is he?”

“I didn't know it was as bad as it is, Sam, until I examined the hexbag he used, until I had a chance to really talk to Metatron about what he did,” Olle says.

“Let us talk to him,” Dean says looking over his brother's shoulder.

Cas groans in the background as Olle makes his way back over to the bed and hands the angel his phone, “Here ya go Cas, I'll just,” he shifts, handing the phone to the angel and gesturing over his shoulder, “I'll be over there.”

“Dean,” Cas says, voice agony and gravel and so fucking much need it tears Olle apart inside that this is his fault. 

He looks over, the tears in his eyes starting to slide down his face, and sees, somehow, Lucifer has told Gabriel. He is standing in the doorway. Whatever apologies and words of comfort and forgiveness Cas and the brothers exchange are lost on the immortal at the sight of the world denied him, crying. The two lock eyes, but Lucifer will not let go of his brother's arm and Olle uses every thing in him to root himself to the spot because they will both be lost if either of them moves. 

“Olle,” Cas groans a moment later and the big man forces himself to take a deep breath, wipe his face, and will his legs to move. 

“Yeah Cas,” he says moving away from Gabriel and Lucifer to sit on the edge of Cas' bed and take his phone when the angel hands it back to him. 

“Hey,” Sam's voice rings out and Olle turns the phone so he can see the hunter's face, “Cas kinda gave us the low down, we're on our way back. Can I call you?” he asks indicating by the look on his face he wants to talk to him without Cas listening. 

Olle shakes his head, “Yeah,” he says, “I'll call you right back.” Hanging up on Skype, Olle immediately pushes the direct dial for Sam's cell and, when he picks up at once, Olle moves to the other side of the room so Gabriel and Lucifer can come stand by their brother, “Yeah Sam?”

“What the fuck is going on man?” Sam wants to know. 

“I told you, he's been cursed, infected, hexed; I don't know what you'd call it. From what I've gotten out of Metatron, and what I've found researching, this could have been so, so much worse. I'm certain I can fix this,” he says confidently. 

“We're on our way back now,” Sam says. “It will be tomorrow morning before we get back though. He said he isn't sure he can wait.” Sam's voice is quiet, serious, tense. 

“I can fix this Sam,” Olle says again. “Did he say he was willing to let me try? He'll tell you and Dean what he won't tell me.” Olle is using his best reassuring doctor voice but it breaks when he hears Gabriel let out a sob and he takes a deep breath, “I won't let him go. You just have to trust me. You all just have to trust me.” 

He is desperate and talking more to Gabriel than to anyone, but Sam answers him anyway, “He trusts you, says you saved his life. Says he would have been dead without you; that we wouldn't even have known what happened if it wasn't for you.”

“Just,” Olle sighs, “I'll wait as long as I can for you, but I'm not making any promises.”

“What are you gonna do to him?” Dean yells into the phone.

Dean sounds like he is barely hanging on to his panic and Olle knows he needs to be here, is so tempted to fuck the consequences and make Gabriel go get them, but he watches his angels and he knows adding to what they, he, is suffering now; he cannot, will not, do that. “It's just a transfer of power Dean,” he says instead. “I'm going to shift the focus of the curse from Cas, to me and let it ride itself out.”

“You're going to kill yourself,” Sam says bluntly. 

Olle barks a laugh that gets everyone's attention, “Yeah, I guess I am,” he says. Cas tries to sit up and focus on what Olle is saying to the brothers but it causes a pain filled, grunting moan to stutter its way out of his body. “Like I said, I'll wait as long as I can,” Olle says going over to the bed, all doctor's professionalism now, “but I can't make you any promises it won't be done by the time you get here.”

“Yeah Olle, man,” Sam says with a sigh and Olle just knows he is scratching his hand through his hair with a resigned look on his face. “We'll hurry.”

“We'll see you when you get here,” Olle says confidently before hanging up.


	11. Chapter 11

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Olle says to Cas, “Now that the family has been informed, and agreed to wait in the waiting room, we can get started.” Olle smiles at Cas and pats his leg but the emphatic look he turns on Lucifer gets his point across and the devil drags his protesting brother out of the room.

Cas is in a lot of pain, it is obvious just looking at him; the sheen of sweat, coupled with the labored breathing and tension make it hard for him to focus and respond, but he says, “What do we need to do? I can't,” he grits his teeth to bite back a moan, “I can't stay like this much longer. I can feel my Grace being shredded and ripped away.”

“First, I need some of your Grace,” Olle starts. “Not a lot, but enough for a sacrifice. What would it take you to resurrect someone? Not in strength, exactly, because I know that isn't something you're capable of right now, but in volume; that should be enough.” 

Cas nods, fast and jerky. “There is a syringe,” he says, “in the drawer,” he points with a badly shaking hand, “use it to extract the Grace.”

Olle gets up and goes to the metal cabinet, pulling the tin box with the old metal syringe out. “Here?” he holds it up, to the angel's frantic nod, before returning to the bed. “Okay,” he says sitting the bed up so he can work, “if you need to grab onto me, that's fine. Use my leg, though,” he chuckles, “if you break my arm we're kinda fucked.”

That gets a weak laugh out of the angel and he shakes his head again before twisting his hands in the bedding, “I'm ready.” The agonizing ring of Castiel's true voice throughout the Bunker, as Olle fills the syringe with Grace, forces Lucifer to take his little brother and leave so the archangel will not smite Metatron for what he has done. Panting, sweating even more profusely than before, Cas collapses back onto the bed as his body seems to be shriveling up around him. He pants, clearly in agony. “What next?” he needs to know when Olle turns back after laying the syringe on a bedside tray. 

“Time to jump ship,” the big man says as he starts to hook the angel up to a standard vitals monitor and hangs several bags over the bed, connecting them to Cas' IV. Olle knows he will have full control over Cas once the angel has taken up residence inside his vessel, but Cas has no idea, so Olle continues, “Focus on cutting yourself off from everything that isn't you when you get in here. I need to be me long enough to put your vessel on life support and preform the spell.”

“How long will this take?” he needs to know, voice frighteningly small and strained.

“Getting you on life support, ten minutes. The spell, about that probably, but how long it will take to work? I have no idea,” Olle says moving around the bed to cover the angel in blankets he pulled from the warming drawer in the back wall, next to the refrigerated drug storage. Plugging up the electric blanket he puts on Cas last, Olle moves closer to the ventilator and defibrillator before he says, “Ready when you are Dudley.”

Cas smiles then, through the pain, “Cary Grant, I got that reference,” he says before Cas pulls free of his body and envelopes a grinning Olle. 

Olle staggers at first, the pain intense, but he forces Cas into the empty spot inside of him where his soul should be and gets to work. The angel is totally oblivious to what is going on and, unfortunately for Olle, the doctor is able to peel away the curse and drive its ill effects into himself. He pushes the pain to the back of his mind, even though it sings through him, and works quickly to get Cas' body intubated. Once the angel is hooked up to the ventilator, Olle gives him a hit of epinephrine and monitors his vitals for a few minutes before he hooks up the leads for the defibrillator. “Luce,” he calls out and, after a few seconds the angel appears, without his brother. “Where's Gabe?” he asks. 

“It was best he not return. What is it you need?” he asks. 

Olle is letting the pain flow through him right now because he does not need to be focused on anything urgent at the moment and it takes him a few seconds to respond. “The little box,” he says indicating the display screen on the defibrillator, “is set up to monitor if he needs a shock. When he does, it will beep and you'll be asked to push the big red button. I just need you to stay here and push the button if you need to.” He is starting to sweat, but he ignores it, “If you shock him three times and it wants you to hit him again, don't. Come get me.”

“Where are you going?” the archangel asks. 

“I need Metatron for the spell. I'll be in the dungeon. Room 7B, I'll leave the doors open.” Lucifer shakes his head before Olle picks up the syringe of Cas' Grace and heads through the Bunker. 

In the War Room, Olle stops and calls out to Gabriel, who appears immediately. “What's wrong?” he asks frantic. 

“We're okay, Gabe,” Olle says gently. “I need some things from Beth. Go tell her I need pieces of the twelve, an angel feather, the large piece of the Eye we use as an alter stone, Holy Oil, a piece of Pit Leather, and Fairy sinew. Tell her not to waste bow string, just a foot or so of thread is all I need. And bring me a ceramic knife.” 

“Why did you start this without having all these already?” he asks angry. 

“Because he was dying, Gabe,” Olle says seriously, losing focus and being taken over by the tearing, seeking pain that wants to find Cas, and his Grace, where they are buried inside of him, and gnaw on them until the angel is torn apart. With a deep, focusing breath, Olle goes on, “When you get back, I'll let you go in with me to see Metatron. You can scare the fuck out of him and make him forget so you can do it all over again later.” Olle smiles, “How does that sound?”

The archangel calms, grins, and says, “You know me too, too well. I'll be back ASAP.”

Olle just means to lean on the map table and wait for Gabriel, but he finds himself splayed across it; letting pain, like he has not felt since he was in Hell, wash through him while he keeps Cas hidden away from the destructive force of it. He forces himself not to tense up, to relax and let is fill him to overflowing while he counts his breaths, in and out. In. Out. In. Out. Olle refuses to let himself pass out because he knows he will tense up and, with the intensity of the pain, he may have a heart attack if that happens. After what seems like days, but couldn't have been, so he figures he is just reflecting on Hell time, Gabriel shows back up with a crate full of everything he asked for. Getting up slowly, he shakes himself and pushes the pain away. 

Gabriel follows the giant of a man through the Bunker but, outside room 7B, Olle turns to him and says, “You have to swear to me on all we are trying to do here Gabe, you cannot kill him! Not even when we are finished. I couldn't explain that to Sam and Dean. He has to live, for now.”

The angel nods his head, “I understand. I hate it,” he says bluntly, “but I get it. I'm going to make him wish he had never been, though,” he says with a terrifying certainty that, no doubt, will remind the former angel, turned human prisoner, archangels are, in fact, Heaven's most terrifying weapon.


	12. Chapter 12

Metatron huffs a quiet, “Finally,” when Olle opens the cell doors but stops speaking as all the color drains from his face when Gabriel comes in, still carrying the box. What he finally manages to get out is a quiet, “You're dead.”

“Not anymore I'm not,” the archangel says, steel in his voice, as he focuses on emptying his box on the bare table in the corner. Olle knows it is taking everything in Gabriel not to round and unleash all his angelic fury on the tiny man. No words are spoken after that quiet exchange and Gabriel moves away from the table, to the far corner of the room; Olle comes over to survey his makeshift alter. 

The large piece of the Great Eye, nearly four feet long, almost two feet wide, and eight inches thick, has a massive five inch dip in the middle where Olle lays out his leather and gathers his other ingredients, one by one, into the center, forming a wheel pattern. The small fragment of Eye Metatron used is placed in the center, and Olle carries it over to the bound man, perching the heavy stone across his lap. When Gabriel comes over to hold the stone Metatron flinches, but the angel merely shakes his head with a grin and waits. 

Olle comes back with the syringe of Grace and ceramic knife; for the first time since he came into the room, he speaks, “You're not going to remember any of this, Metatron, when we're finished. So, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: God never cared enough to care about the nephilim. When Michael wrote this down, he omitted key parts of the spell.”

“When Olle and I created this spell,” Gabriel says, “it was to sunder Creation.”

Metatron gapes then, first at Gabriel then Olle, before he says, “You're the First Soul!”

Olle picks up the angel feather from the edge of the stone and puts it in Metatron's bound hand; after, he lays the feather on top of the small piece of eye in the center, he uses the ceramic knife to cut Metatron's palm, and Gabriel collects the blood over the contents of the bag. “I am,” Olle says. “And you fucked with my friend. What do you think that means I'm going to do to you?”

The big man and the angel go back to the table without giving the human a chance to speak. Olle takes the knife to his wrist, cutting deep; horizontally. The nonstop pain he has been in since Cas took possession of him ratchets up a notch as he quickly starts to bleed out. Gabriel slides a chair beneath him as his legs give out and the archangel's hand snakes out to hold his bleeding arm over the dip in the stone until the contents are completely covered by the pool of blood. Olle starts to nod frantically, teeth clenched, and he grits out, “Fuck Gabe, that's enough, that's enough, do it now; please.”

When Gabriel releases his arm it is whole again and the blood loss is reversed. “You okay?” the angel asks quietly. 

“When am I ever not?” he asks. Gabriel nods, not believing that, but Olle stands back up and all of the man's attention is focused on finishing this. Picking up the syringe of Grace, Olle pulls the stopper free and pours it over the blood before old, old words pour from his mouth, like he only just wrote them, “Freely given, the sacrifice must be accepted. The torment of the inflicted will cease.”

“That's it?” Metatron yells from across the room. “A couple dozen words of elvish and you unmade the world?”

“Simple is always best,” Gabriel says over his shoulder as Olle pours the Holy Oil over the blood and Grace before setting it aflame. The mixture starts to churn and whirl beneath the flames. The build up of energy is easy to feel, even for the human in the room, and, as the power builds to a crescendo, Olle is blown across the room; hit in the chest by a Holy fireball containing the full force of all the accumulated power. He screams in agony as the curse rips free of Cas and burns its way through Olle, who made himself the sacrifice. Cas oblivious, Olle wails again as the Grace within the spell is used to shred Olle's nerve endings and sear his brain. When the energy dissipates, Olle is slumped on the floor, breathing laborious, one leg bent to rest his arm across, Gabriel hurries to the big man and, with a hand to his chest, heals him. Olle groans painfully, but he is relaxed and smiling in the end. 

“Christ Olle,” Gabriel swears straddling his out stretched leg to cup his face. “Are you both okay?” he needs verbal confirmation, despite the exhausted grin on the man's face. “I couldn't heal all of it, not without Cas realizing what I was doing.”

“We're good Gabe. I'm good,” Olle says with a wave of his hand and would have gone on, but is cut off by the press of the archangel's mouth and the insistence of his ravenous tongue. 

“Ugh,” Metatron groans, “get a room!”

Gabriel is free of Olle and standing in front of the prisoner in an instant, “You cast all the angels from Heaven, decimating the Host with petty in-fighting, and forcing them on an ignorant, innocent Humanity. You exposed yourself to the masses, in an attempt to declare yourself God, and murdered Dean Winchester. You used magicks that were sealed away from Creation, for a reason, to attempt to murder Cas,” Gabriel says the last with a deathly calm that sends a chill through Metatron and he tries to cower, despite his lack of mobility. “Cas,” Gabriel goes on, almost vibrating with rage, “ignorant, foolish angel who tries so hard!”

“Gabriel,” Olle says sternly, “you promised.” Gabriel nods as Olle comes up behind him to glare at Metatron. “I'm going to hold you that,” he says quietly. “Metatron,” Olle says drawing the man's attention from the Holy fury in front of him, “I'm going to go put Cas back where he belongs. I'm leaving you here with him, because he promised not to kill you. I'm telling you this, because you need to know, no matter what he does to you, you won't be allowed to die. Cas and he are, you see,” Olle says with an evil, predatory smile, “like Michael and Lucifer; soulmates.” 

All the color drains from Matatron's face and he starts to shake visibly. “You can't leave me here alone with him, Ancestor, you can't! He's going to destroy me!”

Olle puts his hand on Gabriel's shoulder and the angel looks up at him; making eye contact, Olle says, “Make sure he doesn't remember any of it when you're done. And Gabe, be done before Sam and Dean get back.” When Gabriel nods, Olle turns and heads back toward the infirmary; totally ignoring the progressively more frantic screams of the man he left behind.

**

Back in the infirmary, Olle sees Lucifer sitting in the chair by Cas' body's bed, watching the defibrillator intensely. 

“Hey,” Olle says coming around to the other side of the bed. 

The angel looks up then and smiles, “It worked!”

Olle shakes his head, grinning, “How's the meatsuit?” It is a derogatory term, he knows, but it is not a vessel any more, not really, because Jimmy has been dead for years and Cas has had occasion to occupy it as a human. 

If Lucifer finds Olle's word choice distasteful, he makes no mention of it, “He has been fine. I haven't had to shock him once.”

“Awesome!” Olle says. “Listen,” he sighs, sitting down in the chair on the other side of the bed, “I made Gabe promise he wouldn't kill him, but I don't trust him. Go see how Metatron is?”

Lucifer nods once before he disappears but the look on his face lingers. It was a look that wondered at how well Olle knew Gabriel if he felt confident enough to take him at his word on this. Olle was not really sure, himself, if it was a good idea, but letting Gabriel release his frustrations this way was better than killing the scribe. He could still be useful and he had proven himself dangerous, so he could not be released, yet. 

Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes and concentrates on Cas, where he is hidden away in that concentrated, empty, place where Olle's soul should be. The angel is no longer dying, but he is very, very weak and his Grace is damaged, but not irreparably. Olle knows, now, it was a good idea to suggest Lucifer stay for a while; Cas will need all the help he can get to heal. 

Reaching out again, Olle cannot help but wrap his age and his strength around the damaged angel, so he will begin to heal, and Cas notices the power there. “Olle?” the question comes hesitant and unsure. 

“Hey Cas,” he says. “How you feeling?”

“Is that you?” he asks 

Olle laughs, “Yeah, man, that's me. I think we've fixed you, how do you feel?” Olle says as he lets Cas stretch himself out and take up equal space inside his body and mind. 

Olle can feel the angel hesitate, take stock, and think about his answer before he says, “I am weakened, but not permanently damaged. How did you manage to do this? I thought we would both die.”

Olle chuckles softly. “I told you, I have a book,” he says going over to pick up the book and flip to the page in question before reading it so Cas would see it as well. The pages detailed a reversal spell Olle modified significantly to come up with the one he used. “Now,” he says marking his place with a piece of paper pulled from his pocket and laying the book back down, “you're still very weak, I can keep your body alive a week or so, probably, if you'd rather stay where you are for a while.”

“Why,” Cas wants to know, “does there seem to be so much more of you here than me? I wouldn't even know how to go about trying to give us this dual occupancy we seem to be accomplishing. How are you doing this?”

Olle shrugs, “I don't know what you mean. My curse,” he says treading dangerous water, “could be the cause. No soul means nothing to overcome, maybe?”

“You have a very strong, very grounded soul, though,” Cas says immediately. “I can feel it.”

“You said so yourself, though, it is very, very small. Maybe it slips through the cracks? You also said you were weakened. There could any number of reasons, none of which are of immediate import. Do you want your body back right now or not?” Olle does not mean so sound snippy, but he is tired, bombarded by Cas' mind and Grace, still in pain from the curse and the counter-curse, and really wants Luce to send his brother packing then put them both to sleep until Sam and Dean get back.

“Yes,” the angel says kowtowed. “I would very much like to have my vessel back, thank you.”

“I'm sorry Cas,” Olle says sincerely. “I really didn't mean to bitch. I'm exhausted and, to be honest, still in no small amount of pain. That is no excuse, though, for being rude. Let's get you back where you belong so you can rest.”

“I understand. I wish I could heal you,” the angel says, “but that is currently beyond me. Much, I believe, will be beyond me for some time, after this, while my Grace heals.”

“Eh,” he says, “Sam was pretty sure this would kill me; so if it gets to be too much, I'll just have one of the boys put a bullet in me. Dean will enjoy that, he's pissed you're hurt.”

Cas laughs at that as Olle goes over to stand by the bed, looking down at Cas' empty body. “You need a living vessel, right?” At the angel's hum of assent he continues, “I'll have to leave the tubes in, then, just to be sure. Once you're back where you belong, I can unhook everything. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Cas says before the room fills with angel and Olle realizes he can almost see him as he moves from one body to the other. It is nothing like it was in the beginning, though, and it leaves him with an even more insistent headache than he had before.


	13. Chapter 13

When the angel does not immediately wake up and start fighting the ET tube, Olle refuses to panic, but he goes over and turns the machine down to check for spontaneous respiration. When he confirms the angel can breathe every other breath on his own, he is relieved. Once his heart rate is confirmed to be stable, Olle removes the IV and, with it, the drugs that were helping maintain his body as well as keep him paralyzed. Olle waits for almost an hour, before he allows himself to get nervous and pray, “Luce, can you two get back in here, please. I need you.”

Lucifer appears in an instant, alone, and Olle asks, “Where is your brother?”

“I took him home after I cleaned up Metatron and altered his memory. He is not coming back right now,” the angel says bluntly. 

“Is he okay?” Olle asks.

“He will be,” Lucifer says. “What is wrong, though?”

“Cas isn't waking up,” Olle says. “He should have been, at least, fighting the tubes by now. I know I can take him off the machines, but it feels wrong when he isn't awake.” Olle shakes his head, “It doesn't make any sense, I know he doesn't even need to breathe, but,” he trails off. 

Lucifer goes to his brother and puts his hand in the center of his chest before looking up at Olle, “He is alive, just very, very weak at the moment. I've healed what I can, that he won't realize, and you can take all the machines off. He could sleep for a few hours or a few days, it depends on how quickly he recovers.”

“You're staying, right?” Olle needs to know as he starts disconnecting the heart monitor and moves to the head of the bed to take out the ET tube.

“I can, yes,” he says sitting down in the chair he vacated earlier. 

“Good,” Olle says as he starts to clean up, but, with a thought, Lucifer has done it all for him. Looking around, suddenly without anything dire to accomplish, Olle is painfully aware of how exhausted he is, of how much residual pain he is in. “I'm going to go take a shower. Come and get me if you need anything or if he wakes up.”

Lucifer simply nods before snapping up Sam's A Song of Ice and Fire series, to continue reading. 

Olle stops by the dungeon to check on Metatron and he is sleeping, slumped over, still bound to the chair, healed of the worst of even what Olle saw him with before he left Gabriel alone with the man. Olle is certain Lucifer is behind that and he is more grateful than he can say that the man was not awake to sling insults his way. The big man showers and changes into soft black sleep pants and a gray t-shirt before coming, barefooted, back into the infirmary to confine his too large frame to a too small bed across from Cas. With a snap, Lucifer has turned all the lights, but a small desk lamp, off and continues to read while Olle falls into a frantic, thrashing sleep. 

After about an hour, the big man starts to scream and Lucifer, mindful of what happened the last time, stands several feet away while saying, “Olle, Olle you're having a nightmare.” The big man jerks awake, panting and covered in sweat, eyes wide and slow to focus. Lucifer goes over to sit on the edge of the bed and, with one finger to his forehead, takes away the panic and the terror while cleaning up him, his clothes, and his sweat drenched bed. “Better?” the devil asks gently. Olle only nods and lays back down, but Lucifer pulls his chair up by the bed and, feet propped by Olle's hip, continues to read while the doctor drifts back into a much gentler sleep. 

**

Olle woke slowly, looking around the dark room, finding the single light still burning somewhere to the right of him and the weight on the bed shifted before he heard Lucifer say, “Sam and Dean just got here, they aren't even out of the car yet. I didn't want to wake you but, since they can't see me, someone will need to explain about Cas.”

Olle sits up slowly, no longer sore or in pain since Lucifer laid his hand on him after his nightmares earlier. He stretches, though, regretting the much too small 1950's era hospital bed. Swinging his legs over the side and standing, he looks over at the still unconscious angel and asks, “Has he improved any?”

Lucifer shrugs, “He is getting stronger, I can feel it.”

“Good,” Olle says. “You can roam the Bunker, Luce,” Olle says moving toward the door. “I'd just like you close so he can heal a little faster. He was convinced he is inept and useless before; the sooner he feels stronger again, the sooner I can find a way to kick that idea's ass.”

Lucifer laughs, a quiet chuckle that never seems to reach his eyes, “I'll keep that in mind. You're not going to make it to the kitchen for coffee, I'm afraid, though,” he says when he realizes Sam and Dean are headed down the hall. With a snap, for show and because Gabriel has been the one teaching him how to do it, Olle has a Yeti mug, from his collection at home in Kansas City, “I believe it should be how you like it; not as sweet as Gabriel takes it but very pale, with added espresso.”

Olle smiles, thankfully, and tries the coffee, “It's perfect, even the temperature Luce, thanks!” The devil only nods and moves back to his chair and the book he was reading. Olle barely has time to drop down in the chair by Cas' bed before the door flings open and Sam and Dean rush in. 

“How is he?” Dean asks as both men stop in the middle of the room.


	14. Chapter 14

Olle heaves himself to his still groggy feet and motions for them to come over. As both men fall into a chair on either side of the angel, he answers, “The counter-curse was a rousing success, but he is weak, very weak. He was conscious, and talking, earlier,” Olle says using their conversation before Cas returned to his body as evidence of the angel's well being. 

“Why, then,” Sam asks, “is he not now?”

Olle leans over, picking his book up from the foot of the bed. Handing it to Sam, he says, “To do what I did, I had to fiddle with universal perception.”

“What?” Sam asks opening up the book to where Olle had stuck a random gas receipt and starting to read. 

“I used Holy Oil for containment, a small amount of Cas' Grace, willingly given, and myself as his vessel,” Olle says taking a long drink of his coffee. “I made the curse think I was him, and it burned through me, and his small amount of sacrificed Grace.”

Sam looks up from the book and asks, “How are you not dead? How is Jimmy's body not dead?”

“I put him on life support,” Olle says gesturing around at all the equipment littering the room. “I'm not dead because, after the spell finished destroying the sacrificial Grace, I was still possessed by an angel.”

“Why isn't he waking up?” Dean asks angrily, eyes not leaving Cas' still, silent, form stretched out on the bed. 

“He said he was very weak, he sounded weak and exhausted in my head as we were talking after I regained consciousness, when the spell was complete,” Olle says. “He wanted, though, to return to his vessel as soon as possible. He is breathing, his heart is beating, and he isn't bleeding, exploding, or writhing in agony; he said he may be like this for a while. Said it could be a few hours or a few days,” Olle says quietly, passing off what Lucifer told him as Cas' words. “That was only a few hours ago. I got myself cleaned up, and crashed out over there,” he gestures to his still messy bed. “I've been awake exactly long enough to get this,” he holds up his coffee cup. 

“What happened, exactly?” Sam wants to know. 

“How did he end up like this in the first place?” Dean asks, blaming Olle in tone if not word.

Olle goes back over to slump down on his bed, wishing he had thought to push two together, and spares a curious look at the invisible angel; he is pretending to read while he listens and watches the brothers intently. Olle stretches out, sitting on the bed, back against the head, his feet nearly touching the foot, and takes a long drink of his coffee before he starts to speak, “I don't know how the two of you haven't noticed, but he's kinda been fucked up lately.” Olle is serious and he needs them to hear him so, even in his rumpled, exhausted slump on the bed, he adopts his best 'caring, authoritative doctor' voice, “He is wearing Sam's baggy clothes and snuggled up in his bed like some depressed, frumpy housewife who's obsession with Netflix and trash TV is the only thing keeping them from locking themself in the garage with a running car. He cringes every time anyone mentions leaving the Bunker.”

“I think you're stretching it a little bit, don't you?” Dean says. 

“I don't know, Dean,” Sam says. “He's been pretty messed up since Rowena's spell. And Olle's right, he hasn't left the Bunker since we got her to fix it.”

“Anyway,” the doctor cuts in, “yoga went well and I invited him come with me to Kansas City when I got my stuff, but he said he wanted to stay; had a good excuse too: wanted to make sure someone was here in case you boys needed research.” Olle takes a deep breath here, totally willing to take blame for this next bit, “I mentioned Metatron as I was leaving, told him we'd talk about it when I got back and try to figure something out. I was hoping it would pull him out of this funk a little bit and, when you got back, we'd have a plan.”

“But?” Sam asks. 

Olle takes a long, final, drink from his cup and looks at it almost sadly before Lucifer notices and Olle smirks a little bit before taking another drink and going on, “I called him and asked if he wanted to meet me in Wichita, just to poke around, and he said he was already there. I made him promise not to go off on his own, to wait for me, and he did. I've got a friend who's done some hacking and I made a call on my way back, digging up everything I could about Metatron. I ended up with an address and, when I got there, we went to check it out. He's been stealing mostly, I think, and doing the video thing, to get by. When he left for the night, Cas and I searched his place, we found the demon tablet, but there were a few nasty booby-traps laying in wait for curious angels. I wanted to regroup, bring you guys back with us, but we heard a call of shots fired across town and Cas took off without me.” Olle shakes his head, “When I got there the guy, who Cas had obviously healed, if the amount of bleed out on the ground was anything to go by, told me they just disappeared. I found them nearby, in an empty building, and Cas seemed to be holding his own. They were talking, Cas got some interesting information out of him, but, as he turned to go, Metatron threw a hexbag and hit him in the back.”

“So it was a curse?” Sam says. 

Olle nods, “I was damn lucky I had that fucking book. On my way back here, Cas and Metatron in tow, I got my hacker friend to load up what medical equipment I thought I'd need and meet me in town with my truck.” Olle hears Lucifer smirk, but he just keeps going, “I had a Witch's Collar, by happenstance, with me and I used it to get information out of Metatron. If I hadn't had it,” he shakes his head knowing this should be true, “no doubt, Cas would be dead.”

“What was the spell?” Dean wants to know. “What did he do to Cas?”

“It was, according to him, a spell Gabriel used to kill the nephilim. He never struck me as the type to care enough about them to kill them, but,” Olle shrugs and takes another drink. “Anyway, it was supposed to burn his body out; leave it unable to contain Grace. It should have killed him, but, apparently, Metatron messed something up or didn't have all the information.”

“And you did what?” Sam asks expectantly. “Exactly,” he adds like he knows Olle will skirt the issue if he can. 

With a sigh, the big man answers mostly truthfully, “I used the remains of the hexbag, Metatron's blood, and ingredients from the apothecary here to convince the curse to attack me, and the small amount of Cas' Grace I had, instead of Cas and his Grace. By helping him force himself into the farthest reaches of me, I cut him off from the curse and, when it was done with me, I poked around in my own head until I got his attention.”

“You can do that?” Sam asks. 

Olle laughs, “My mother was a witch and I'm cursed; I can do lots of things. Some of which, I'm sure, I'm not even aware of.”

Olle is sure Sam is about to continue, suggest experimentation of some kind, but Cas groans and all four stop what they were doing to look over at the broken angel. Lucifer is at his side with a thought, hand on his chest, healing as subtly as possible, while Olle leavers himself up; Sam and Dean following suit.

“Dean,” the angel croaks; even injured and barely conscious his voice comes out gravel and sex.

“Hey Cas,” the hunter says dropping down in the chair by the bed while Sam stands behind him and Olle moves around the other side of the bed, by Lucifer. 

Olle spares a moment to lock eyes with Lucifer and the angel nods, letting Olle know the younger angel should be okay now. Olle looks at the other three and realizes they are clustered around themselves in their own little world; family. Lucifer picks up his book and vanishes; Olle suspects he is splayed out either downstairs in the middle of the boxing ring or in the middle of Olle's ridiculously large, comfortable bed. Olle smiles, finishing off the last of his second cup of coffee as he leaves the infirmary.


	15. Chapter 15

Sam walks into the kitchen about an hour later, looking for Olle, but all he finds is a note and leftover meatloaf. He makes a pot of coffee and putters around making himself a sandwich like the note suggested. As he is finishing up his food, Sam watches Olle come in and make his own sandwich. Dropping his plate on the table, Olle goes over to the coffee pot and pours himself a cup before he slumps down at the table and Sam says, "I looked around and you were gone.”

Olle sits back, reaching for his most recent cup of coffee, “Force of habit I guess. Surgeons don't hang around when the job is done.”

Sam nods, finishing the last of his sandwich, “And friends?”

Olle barks a laugh, “Haven't had those in a long time kid; it'll take me a while to adjust.”

Sam huffs an easy laugh, dimples showing, and Olle is struck, again, by how beautiful he is. The bigger man tucks into his food, though, to avoid staring while Sam says, “Kid, huh? You get that I've spent centuries in Hell and, technically, your only like three weeks old, right?”

Olle cannot help but burst out laughing and it causes him to nearly choke on his food, but it makes him feel better at the same time. “Fair point,” he says wiping his eyes. “You get it's mileage, though, right? And there has been a lot of that these past three weeks. Vampires, fallen angels, curses, possession, and that counter-curse hurt like a mother!”

Sam shakes his head, conceding the point, “Are you okay? I know we barreled straight to Cas, but,” he trails off waiting for an answer.

Olle shrugs a simple, “How can I not be?” before he goes back to eating. 

“I can think of lots of way,” the hunter says, “and that wasn't an answer.”

“It is,” Olle says taking their empty dishes to the sink. “Now, lets go do something about Metatron before your brother forgets he is no longer a demon and decides to give professional torture another try.”

“Where is he?” Sam asks. 

“I put him in the holding cell down the hall. He was asleep the last I checked on him, but that was hours ago,” Olle says grabbing a protein bar and sports bottle, filling it with water, before following Sam out of the kitchen toward room 7B. 

“What's that?” Sam asks when Olle catches up. 

“He's human,” Olle reminds him. “He's gotta eat, and he has to have water. Cas fucked him up pretty good, but I, he, healed him as best he was able after we, I, he, got his blood for the counter-curse.” 

“What are we going to do with him?” Sam says. “He is human now and he may be dangerous, but we don't hunt humans.”

Olle stops in the corridor outside the door and turns an aged look on Sam, “I'm a soldier, Sam, and I've hunted plenty of humans. The only difference is we expect more from them, and often get worse, because the creatures we hunt work on instinct and survival.” Olle shakes his head, “You may stand on the other side of the line on this one, but I have no sympathy for the man. I suffered right along with Cas and more; through the total agony he would have endured if I hadn't found a way to stop it.” Olle shakes his head again, “I won't just walk in there and put a bullet in his head because I think he's earned it, and I won't let your brother carve into him like I'm sure he'll want to, but, if it comes down to it, I'll not lose sleep over needing to do it, or being the one to see it gets done.”

“You can live forever, knowing you killed someone in cold blood?” Sam asks seriously. 

“By the time forever gets here, do you really think that will be worst I've done?” he asks stepping past the shorter man, into the room.

**

Metatron is still asleep, slumped in his chair, and Olle squeezes water in the man's face to wake him up. Sputtering and spitting water, the former angel complains, “Hey! What's going on?” His face is still bloody and swollen and bruised, but he doe not seem to have many other injuries and, certainly, not as many as he did when Cas finished with him in that warehouse. Whatever Gabriel did to him, too, Lucifer managed to clean up, seemingly without incident. 

Olle takes the cuffs off and unties one of Metatron's arms before cuffing his other back to the chair and handing him the bottle of water. “Here, drink,” he says. 

The former angel turns up the bottle and gulps water. When he breaks for air, Olle takes the bottle and hands him the opened protein bar. Once Olle hands him the bottle again and the man has drunk fill, Sam says, “Why Metatron, huh? Why did you try to kill Cas? Why do you do any of the things you do?”

The minuscule man sneers at Sam before he rattles his chains and says, “I don't have to talk to you.” He juts his chin in Olle's direction, “He's the one in control of the collar; I don't answer to you Winchester!”

Sam just shakes his head, but Olle says, “Fine. Why did you want Cas dead?”

The prisoner groans, through clenched teeth, he fights the collar but answers never the less, “The indignities of humanity were forced upon me by them! Even knowing how I suffered, he refused to release me. Why should he get to remain, always remain, coming back over and over again? Why should he be allowed to contain Grace?”

“So you tried to kill him because he wouldn't kill you?” Sam asks confused. 

“The Darkness is going to burn Creation away and I refused to cease to exist before I get to return to Heaven!” the weaselly man says. “I just,” he say with a sad sigh, “wanted to go home.”

Olle will admit he feels sorry for him now, but he knows he is still too dangerous, and too knowledgeable, to be turned out. He motions for Sam to follow him outside before securing the scribe's lose hand. 

In the hallway, Sam turns to Olle and says, “What are we going to do with him?”

“We need to keep your brother away from him for now,” Olle says seriously because Lucifer is standing there also, leaned against the wall behind Sam, and the doctor is talking as much to the invisible angle as he is to Sam. “Cas was the one injured, we wait for Cas to decide. We clean out a room and put sigils and locks on the walls and door and we make sure he doesn't die of dehydration until Cas feels strong enough to confront him and decide for himself what should happen to him.” Olle knows keeping the former angel here is a bad idea, but he could be useful and, as well warded as the Bunker is, he is safer here than anywhere else right now. 

“There is an empty room down the corridor from Dean's,” Sam says. “It use to be a bathroom; it's big enough for a cot.”

Olle nods, “Lets go check it out. I hate the idea of keeping him tied up, he needs medical attention and the longer he sits like that, given his physical age and state of health, the more likely he is to get a blood clot.”


	16. Chapter 16

By the time Olle and Sam have properly cleaned out and warded Metatron's new room, it is well into evening and they decide food is in order. Stopping by the infirmary, Cas is sitting up but Dean, apparently, won't let him out of bed yet and Lucifer just nods to Olle from his seat across from the hunter; still reading. The two towering men decide to bring the smaller man back something instead of dragging him away to Smith Center. When they get into the garage, Olle realizes they have to take Baby because the mess of Metatron's van, his bike, Cas' car and his truck is still parked in the middle of the floor. 

“Yeah,” Olle says looking around, “I'll get all this cleaned up first thing tomorrow.”

Sam shrugs, tossing Olle Baby's keys, “Don't worry about it; you've had a lot on your plate.” Once they are settled inside the Impala, though, he turns to Olle seriously, “If you tell Dean I let you drive, I'll gut you.”

Olle snickers, “Long as you take care of my body when you're done.”

When they get out of the Impala outside the bar where they all first met, Olle stretches and says, “She is a thing of beauty, but I'm just too fucking big for her.”

The next words out of Sam's mouth leave Olle shocked for a second. “Probably not the first time that's happen, huh?” the hunter says without thinking, before he blushes. 

Olle laughs from deep in his chest and leans on the top of the car to look at Sam, dimples on full display, head turned away and down slightly so his hair falls over his face and his cheeks are a beautiful dark crimson; it takes Olle's breath away. “You've been spending far too much time with your brother, Winchester,” Olle laughs. His voice drops then, though, and he cannot help but say, “But that color looks good on you.” 

Sam shakes his head, still smiling, and runs his hand through his hair; if the color on his face spreads down his neck now, it cannot be seen in the dark. 

Olle wonders to himself, as Sam follows behind him, why the fuck he is flirting with the youngest Winchester? He is beautiful, that should go without saying, but there has been very little evidence to indicate he is anything but straight. Beside, Olle thinks to himself as they slide in at the bar, I miss Gabe; that is all this is, it has to be. 

The rest of their time at Pooches is light and companionable. Sam fills Olle in on their last hunt, telling him about Sheriff Donna Hanscum, and Olle gives Sam every pertinent detail about what happened in Wichita. He gets a few more easy smiles from the hunter, telling him about Cas and the prostitutes, before they play a few friendly games of eight ball while they wait on Dean's food. 

When they get back to the Bunker, they head toward the kitchen, for something to feed the Scribe, and find Cas has forced Dean there to eat. The hunter sits on one side of the table, burger, beer, and nachos in front of him while Cas leans against the wall on the opposite side of the table, looking exhausted. Lucifer, Olle notes, is on the floor on the opposite side of the room, but it looks like he has started the next book in the series. 

“What are you two doing?” Dean ask, mouth mostly empty.

“Feeding Metatron,” Olle says searching the shelf of cups to find something he thinks the man cannot use as a potential weapon. 

Dean wipes his mouth and turns to Sam, “What?”

Sam shrugs, “He's human now Dean, if we're gonna keep him here we have to look after him.”

“Cas,” Olle says pulling an old tin cup from the bottom shelf of what looks to be mostly discarded WWII military surplus, “He needs medical attention. Did you want to go back to the infirmary or is it okay I bring him in there? I don't want to do anything that is going to make you uncomfortable.”

“I need to rest,” the angel says, head against the wall, eyes still closed, “but I can do so elsewhere, I suppose.”

“Don't worry Cas,” Dean says, “we'll find you somewhere to crash.”

Metatron is surly, but cooperative, as Sam and Olle unchain him and lead him to the infirmary. He is whiny and fidgety as Olle patches him up, but he seems genuinely grateful for a shower and the clean clothes before Olle escorts him to his new room. Once he is seated on the bed, Sam and Olle standing over him, his snark returns, “You've really got all your bases covered don't you?” he asks looking around at the sigils, glyphs, and warding symbols painted and carved around the room. 

“Thought it might be a good idea to make sure nothing could get to you,” Olle says. “You're dangerous, but you're useful.” 

The former angel chuckles, “That I am.”

“Now,” Sam starts, “you're going to stay here and you're going to think about what you've done.”

“Awe Sam, finally putting me in time out for killing Dean?” he asks. 

Olle gives the man a stern, deadly, look when he feels Sam tense beside him. “Now, I'm going to take the Collar off, but you're going to remember I have it and make sure I don't have to use it again; right?” he asks leaning down to remove the thick piece of leather and metal around the small man's neck.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the man snarks rubbing his neck. “How long am I gonna have to put up with this?”

“Until I'm satisfied you can't be useful and aren't dangerous,” Olle says stepping back to the door beside Sam.

“Well,” the prisoner says, “three hots and a cot.” He rocks on the bed, “This is the Ritz compares to where I was last week. I'll take it.”

Olle leaves Sam in the corridor and heads for the garage, thinking he might as well get this cleaned up before Dean calms down about Cas and gets pissed about this mess. It takes him over an hour to get it all done on his own but Cas' car is parked in a vacant spot beside his truck, Metatron's van, and the tow dolly, are parked outside so Olle can get Lucifer to send the dolly back wherever he got it from and Olle can say he returned it. Unloading his bike alone had been nerve wracking, he was afraid he would knock it over on himself or drop it and damage it in some way, but it was safe, now, beside Dorothy's motorcycle. The last thing Olle does is grab the clothes and most of the books Balthazar helped him pile in the truck; was it only two days ago he wonders? 

Dropping the books, two overstuffed boxes he could barely carry, on a table in the library, Olle throws his clothes in a corner of his room and strips down to boxer-briefs before falling into bed. The room is pitch black, not even the regular red emergency lights in all the other sleeping quarters, so he is asleep in minutes and, blessedly, he does not dream.


	17. Chapter 17

A couple weeks later, Cas is feeling well enough that Dean lets Sam talk him into going to Pennsylvania; apparently, something has been robbing banks, museums, and jewelry stores by melting solid masonry and steel. Whatever it was, four guards were dead, necks broken and it looked like they had been gnawed upon. Whatever it was had taken the daughter of the owner of the last jewelry store to be robbed. 

“Are you sure you don't want me to come with?” Olle asks from his seat at the cheeseboard at the top of the stairs, he and Cas have been playing chess for days and, each time, it ends in a stalemate. He has been hold up here since he got back from Wichita, supposedly researching, but really keeping Lucifer company while he recharges Cas' Grace. The angel was feeling well enough, Olle wanted Lucifer to tag along with Sam and Dean; just to get a chance to observe them and he was not worried, exactly, but he would like to be there, just in case. 

“Nah,” Sam says. “Looks like it is probably nothing really, or a witch, but Cas is still pretty beat up and,” Sam's voice drops a little, “I don't know if it is a good idea to leave him here alone with Metatron.”

Olle is not worried about that, at all. He personally carved the warding sigils into the door frame and sealed them with a blood sigil; angels, demon, monsters, ghosts, or pretty much anything not human was stuck on the opposite side of that door. He was not worried about Cas, anyway, but Gabriel; that was another story. He had asked Lucifer, when the angel sat with him at night, if he had spoken to his brother, but the archangel was less than forthcoming and would say absolutely nothing about what Gabriel had done to Metatron before he put a stop to it. “I'm not worried about Cas trying to hurt him, or even trying to talk to him; I think, for now at least, he knows his limits. Besides,” Olle says, “you did see the sigils I carved into the door facing, didn't you? Nothing but a person, except maybe God or Amara, is getting through that door.”

“I hadn't noticed them,” he says. “I'll be right back.” Sam drops his bag by the door and heads down the steps, obviously to satisfy his curiosity before he leaves. 

Olle chuckles and turns to stare at the chessboard; he was playing with Lucifer right now and had to wait for Sam to leave before the angel could move. “You're still tagging along with them, aren't you Luce?” Olle wants to know once the angel has moved and it is his turn. 

“You seem to want me to and Cas is much better already,” he says watching Olle take his queen's bishop with his king's knight. “I have no objections to going, I don't suppose. Gabriel said it was a good idea, when I told him last night.”

“Huh,” Olle says watching the archangel move. “I didn't know you were talking to him,” he says taking his turn.

“We've been texting,” Lucifer says, capturing Olle's last bishop. 

The big man knew the angel was a masterful general, better even than Michael, because he was so hands-on. It had been a long, long time since he had gotten to see the angel develop and implement strategy, though, and he was slowly and methodically wiping the floor with Olle; it made the hunter grin. “I'm glad I got you that phone,” he says refusing to admit defeat, but knowing he has lost. 

Lucifer smiles, though if it is about the phone or the game Olle has no clue, he moves, then, however and Olle realizes it is about the game. “Checkmate,” the angel says. There is no pride, no superiority in his tone, he is just absolute in his observation.

“I see that,” Olle says. “I'd say I had forgotten the type of general you are, but that would be a lie. Let's just say I pushed it to the back of my mind in favor of more pleasant things.” Olle admits defeat, finally, because he sees he has nowhere to go. “Masterful, Luce, masterful,” he says reaching out to shake the archangel's hand. 

Lucifer returns the shake easily, with none of the awkwardness you would expect Castiel to have, and, with a thought, he resets the board. “You should keep playing with Cas, he is getting better.”

“I will,” he says easily. Olle turns serious eyes on the angel now, though, and says, “Watch out for them Luce. Don't, don't help them unless you absolutely have to, but I'm afraid it is something more sinister than a witch or a weirdo with a flame thrower. I mentioned this to Dean and Sam, but they weren't convinced.”

“I believe it is a dragon,” the archangel says casually. 

“If it is, you need to tell me as soon as possible because they'll go off half cocked and get themselves killed,” Olle says. “They don't have a dragon sword.” 

“You do,” he says. “You have two of the six sets of blades; I saw them in the armory.”

Olle nods, “I do, one is my original set, Gabriel saved them for me when,” he pauses for a minute, “when everything happened. The other, I took from your crypt, right after Cas found the Angel Tablet.”

“I hadn't even thought about my crypts,” he says sitting back in his chair. “Is there anything of value in any of them? Or have you raided them?” he asks with a smile.

Olle returns the smile, “I took anything of import out of all of them as soon as I had Gabe's body salted and burned. You were in a terrible state and I wasn't much better, but I knew the boys were working on it and, to be honest, I thought the First Blade might be among the things hidden there. I just didn't get to the one in Missouri before Sam got you locked up again and, then, I didn't think it mattered.”

Lucifer looks out, down, over the War Room and into the Library, “What I did to you after,” he starts sadly. “I'm so, so...” he trails off thoughtful. 

Olle cuts into whatever he is thinking, “He read my mind a few months ago, he saw all of it.”

“Then why,” Lucifer asks suddenly turning to stare, stricken, into Olle's hazel eyes, “is he still speaking to me? Why do I feel like the only reason I'm alive is that I'm useful?”

“Take us to my room,” Olle says suddenly. With a thought they are both standing at the foot of his bed. Olle does not hesitate, he takes two steps and wraps the angel into a tight embrace. Finally, the Castiel level awkwardness rears its head, because the devil flounders and has no idea where to put his hands. “You're alive because you're his brother and he loves you,” Olle says quietly in his ear. “You're alive because I forgive you, for everything. You're alive because you are not your madness. You're alive because you deserve another shot at this stupid, awful thing called life, Luce.” 

Finally, the angel gets with the program and wraps his arms around Olle's shoulders, clinging, “Thank you. I don't know how right you are, but thank you for saying it,” he says quietly. 

Olle nods and, pulling back, says, “Let's get back before Sam wonders where I've gone; I'd have to pass right by him, outside of Metatron's room, if I was headed in here.”


	18. Chapter 18

With a thought, they are back, sitting across from each other at the chessboard. “I will let you know, before they do, if anything happens. You should, maybe, ask Balthazar to bring you your weapons; the dragon sword at least.”

“An angel's blade,” Olle muses, “won't kill a dragon, will it?”

Lucifer shakes his head, he is a little bashful after what just happened, but he makes eye contact and his voice is sturdy, “Or any of the twelve, and a handful of other lesser creatures, but they have to be close to the twelve. They are prickly as Leviathans when it comes to cutting them up; you have to find whatever it is Dad made special for them.”

“And your sword? Or a Grigori blade?” Olle wants to know. 

“I have no idea,” Lucifer answers quickly because Dean is coming down the entrance steps and Sam is coming into the War Room.

Lucifer could talk to him and not be heard by anyone else, even his brother, but Olle could not answer him, so they had both gotten rather clever, over the course of his stay, when it came to having snippets of conversation. Olle did not like allowing the angel to invade his mind, or vice versa, because they were equally vast and it was easy to get lost in there if you got distracted. Besides, keeping himself contained to only what he wanted to see or have be seen was too much work when still trying to hold down conversations with Sam, Dean, or Cas. 

“Hey Dean,” Olle says when he stops beside the table, “wanna play?”

“I never learned,” he says scratching his head as Sam comes up behind him. 

“Oh God Olle, no, don't even try,” Sam says in such a way as to make it perfectly clear he has already spent many an hour trying to teach his brother, to no avail.

“I smell a challenge,” the doctor says with a grin. “We'll play when you get back; I'll teach you. You'll take right to it once you understand it's all battlefield strategy.”

Dean shrugs, “I don't know, we can try. If,” he says with a smirk, “you manage to beat Cas. You've been playing for a week and neither of you ever wins. You beat Cas and I'll let you teach me,” he says. 

Olle smiles and laughs, “Okay then, I can do that.”

“Come on Sammy,” Dean says picking up his brother's bag, “it's two days to Philly.”

“Later Olle,” the younger hunter says, following his brother up the steps. 

Lucifer waves before vanishing and Olle decides to get up and go in search of the other angel. Finding Cas is easy, he is exactly where Olle suspected he would be, sprawled out on Sam's bed, Netflix que open. Olle flops down on the bed beside the angel and asks, “What are we watching today Cas?”

He is looking at documentaries and Olle hopes he can snatch the remote away from him, but waits for his answer, “You dislike the documentaries,” he says moving down the que to reality TV, “this as well,” he says going on to mysteries before he sighs and hands the giant man the remote. “Why don't you find something? I don't know anymore what would be entertaining.”

Olle takes the remote and sighs, thinking he should starts him out on the same children's books Lucifer found so helpful, but he simply reaches over to the nightstand for the keyboard and, turning off Netflix, uses the internet, how the Bunker has WiFi he has no idea, to find Arsenic and Old Lace. “Here Cas, it'll soon be time for Halloween, we can watch this.” 

“I find modern horror lacking in accuracy and talent,” he says seriously. 

Olle laughs, “It's not horror, it's a comedic psychological thriller. Trust me, okay?” Olle sits back on the bed and turns on the movie. 

Cas looks unconvinced, but he leans back as well. “We'll see,” he says adjusting his pillows.

Two hours later, Olle turns the TV off and asks, “What'd you think?” He grins, “You smiled a couple times, so I know you didn't hate it.”

“I'm still not entirely sure how to process humor,” the angel says seriously. 

“I get that,” Olle says. “Gabriel had been here a long, long time and sometimes I forget you haven't.”

“Did you know him well?” Cas asks. 

Olle shrugs, dangerous territory, again, and chooses his words carefully, “He was a force, Cas. Something bigger and wilder and crazier than anything you could imagine!” Olle smiles thinking about the archangel in question, it is a sad smile too, because he misses his best friend. “It wasn't that he was an archangel, though he could prove that with look; it was him. He got humor and humanity and food and people. It was so easy, the way he fit in here. Like he had never been anywhere else, never wanted or had anything else.” Olle sighs, leans his head back, bumping it into the wall over the headboard, and rubs his face with both hands; it takes a lot, everything, to stop himself from praying to said angel now. 

Cas watches him, thoughtful. “You were in love with him,” he says finally, no question evident. “Were you lovers? I thought,” he pauses and tilts his head in confusion. “What about Kali?”

Olle laughs, “You know, I've read the books; 'history' is what he said, they had 'history' as in, past tense.” Olle sits up on the side off the bed, facing away from Cas, “We were,” he shakes his head, “something; almost from the very beginning. We just sort of stumbled upon each other and he came and went but he never really left me alone after that.”

“I'm sorry,” Cas says putting his hand on Olle's shoulder. “I wish I could have known him better,” he says. 

Olle wishes, then, he could tell Cas the whole truth and make him remember because he has to stop himself from saying, 'You use to know him better than I do, but you gave up the right and the memories for reasons I will never understand.' What he really says is, “I wish you could have too, Cas. How about we go do some yoga? I need to relax. After, you can help me organize the armory; Dean is terrible at cataloging and Sam wants it done.”

“Okay,” the angel says simply. Olle gets the feeling he understands the big man is leaving something unsaid, and he is grateful there is no press at his mind or unwanted questions.


	19. Chapter 19

Olle was getting very good at making Cas do a couple hours of yoga every day and the angel was, not surprisingly, very good at it. It had the added benefit of making him socialize, because they had managed to talk Sam into joining them for the past week. Olle would use the other hunter to help him engage the angel in conversation. Today, though, they spent their time talking about what facts they knew about the case Sam and Dean were working on and where they were going to start when they began cataloging the armory. After their workout, Olle tried to get the angel to eat with him, but he merely sat and watched while Olle made himself a sandwich. 

“Did they ask you to stay here to protect Metatron from me?” Cas asked when Olle was about half finished with his lunch. 

The big man shakes his head, swallowing, and, after a long drink of water, responds, “I don't think you're the kind to kill in cold blood; not any more.”

The angel shrugs, “The fact that he wants it is reason enough not to do it.”

Olle smiles, “Another angel,” he says finishing his food, “wouldn't see it that way. I'm proud of you for that, Cas.”

“It is very human of me, I suppose,” he says with an almost sad sigh.

“Come one,” he says getting up and clapping the angel on the back, “you can brood some more while we organize the armory.”

“There are a large number of boxes down there, not to mention what is housed and displayed throughout the rest of the Bunker.” Cas gets up and follows Olle through the Bunker to the elevator, “Dean will like having everything put away. But,” his tone changes to a knowing one, “he will probably like, more, that he was not the one who had to do it.”

Olle laughs, digging through a bag he got from his room before he ate, “I've got everything I need to start a catalog.” Pulling out a tablet, he spends the rest of their ride setting up the program he uses for his own collections of weapons, artifacts, and books, “We take a picture, and add text. The program assigns a number and this,” he pulls a small portable printer out of the bag, “give us a barcode. I took the whole set up from a friend who works at the Van Gogh museum. I'm hoping Sam will use it for artifacts as well.”

“It seems like a very sound system,” the angel says as they step off the elevator into the armory. 

Just like the other floors, this floor is set up in a traditionally Roman, wheel and spoke pattern. The corridor where the elevator is, though, has no rooms, as a defensive tactic. Once you reach the center of the wheel, however, the typical branches of corridors and rooms returns. Crates, boxes, barrels, and even loose weaponry abound, however, due to the fact that the Men of Letters never really had the opportunity to fully incorporate the Bunker into their workings before Abadon destroyed them. 

Olle goes over to the center of the room, where an empty folding card table sits, and digs in his bag to pull out one sheet of the folded blueprints he gave to Sam the first time they brought him to the Bunker. Spreading them out on the tabletop, he says, “I say we start by evaluating each room, seeing what is already organized, if they had a system, or the plan for a system, set up. Once we know exactly what we're dealing with, we start here organizing bulk categories: guns, blades, armor, munitions, accessories, etc. Once we have everything sorted we can divide each into smaller categories and assign different corridors and rooms for each category and sub-category.”

“That sounds like it is going to take a long time,” Cas says seriously, looking around at the jumbled mess they were surrounded by. 

Olle nods, smiling, “It might; since Dean has only added, from what I can tell, to the disorganization. We are going to need to make sure we are careful, too, any of it could be enchanted and we need to separate magical weapons, armors, and accessories into their own category before sub-categorizing them. They could be dangerous.”

“You look like you're going to enjoy this far too much,” the angel says with a snarky smile. “Let's get to work.”

Olle just grins at him before turning back to his blueprints and formulating a plan. He is going to enjoy this, he has no idea what is down here and finding out is going to be fun. 

**

The next few days go by quickly, while Olle and Cas work on organizing the armory. They have made quite a bit of progress, because of Cas' recharged Grace, and Olle figures the job is about half finished. He hopes they can get it finished, with the exception of the weapons on display throughout the rest of the Bunker, before Dean gets back; if he tries to help, it will negate the progress they have already made. 

Lunch time rolls around on the fifth day of organizing the armory, still no word from Lucifer or Sam and Dean about what they are doing in Pennsylvania, and Olle finds a huge crate, seven feet long, three feet wide, and two feet deep, in one of the far corners; where the Men of Letters looked to have been housing items they saw as of little or no value. 

“Son of a bitch,” Olle breaths quietly, putting his hand in the center of the lid; he knows exactly what is in there, if it is intact. 

“What?” Cas asks coming across the room. 

Olle runs his hands over the box, feeling out the Elvish carved into the ridiculously ancient box. He has two of them at home, the boxes preserved by magick and their contents ancient beyond human comprehension. He carefully places his hands on the sigils keeping the box closed and presses exactly where he needs to, to slide the lid free, “I thought all of these were lost,” he says to Cas looking down into the box. The entire set is there, as well as the magickally preserved leather, gyphs and sigils burnt into each piece. He wonders, sad and a little angry, who the Men of Letters killed to get it.

Cas looks at Olle for a long time, trying to figure out who this cursed man really is, before he speaks, “The Elvish on the lid is ancient, I'm not entirely sure even I can do more than say it is Elvish. They feel,” he pauses for the right word, looking over the kneeling man's shoulder into the crate, “sacred. Do you know what they are?”

Olle nods his head, running his hand, reverently, along the length of the great sword before brushing his fingers across the other seven blades as well. “They were forged by Mica in the beginning, during the Second War, in the fires of the volcano that blew Lucifer from its depths after he was cast out. The eight blades, together, can kill practically anything; except angels or Cain.”

“How do you know about the Father of Dragons?” Cas wants to know. The angel had heard tale, all angels had, of these weapons, but he thought, like so many things at the beginning, if they ever did exist, they were long since lost or destroyed. Seeing them now, knowing Olle was correct, he begins to more than suspect the giant of a man is not entirely who he says he is. 

“Gabriel,” Olle says. “I have many of his things, I told you that, and one of these crates is among the things I have.” Olle locks the lid back on the crate and stands. “Help me carry it into the main room Cas,” he says grabbing the lather handle at one end. 

“How did you end up with so many of his possessions?” Cas asks as they walk through the corridor. 

Olle shrugs, “A few books, he gave me before he was killed. I ended up with a lot of it because I knew several of his hiding places and, to be honest, I went looking for his dog.”

“His dog?” Cas asks as they sit the case down on a huge round wooden table that takes up most of the main room now, they found it in another room in pieces and this was the only place it would fit. “Gabriel had a dog?”

Olle smiles, “Did you never read Chuck's books? He had a Jack Russell Terrier, turned out to be a familiar. I was glad, it took me months to find him; if he were really a dog, the poor thing would have starved.”

“Why did Gabriel have a familiar?” Cas asks running his hands over the crate, trying to decipher the Elvish carved there. 

Olle laughs, “Apparently, Jonas said, he was with a witch who got mixed up with a coven and, when Gabriel unleashed his Trickster judgment on them, he liked Jonas so much,” Olle says with a shrug, “he kept him.”

Cas nods, “He was here alone for a very long time. He seemed very human to me, as much as a so called Trickster could be considered human.” Cas shakes his head, “He didn't act like an angel anymore, anyway, so I assume the companionship of a pet would be welcome.”

Olle thinks about Gabriel, how long he had been away from Heaven, and how much Olle had seen him grow and change since the beginning; he saw the regular amount of evolution of character and personality, but nothing so drastic as to say the angel was totally unlike himself. “How well do you remember your brother?” he asks.

“I knew him by reputation, of course,” Cas says turning the case over to continue to examine the writing. “However, we only met once, when he had Sam and Dean trapped in TV Land.”

So, Michael really did take everything away from him, Olle realizes. He feels profoundly sorry for the angel, then, and quickly changes the subject back to the weapons. “They are all demon killing blades, except the long sword and the great sword,” Olle says nodding at the case. Cas slowly opens the case, again, and looks inside, “There should be a set of,” Olle trails off pulling the two small curved daggers from the box, “here we go!”

“They are beautiful weapons,” Cas says pulling the matching short swords out and testing the weight of them in his hands. “What did my brother tell you about them?” the angel wants to know, putting the blades back and turning to the big man. 

“The great sword will kill dragons, the long sword magickal creatures, all the others, pretty much everything but dragons, angels, and Cain. He said the dragon sword would kill just about any child of Eve destroyed by fire, but the long sword only worked on fae.” Olle puts the daggers back in the case and sits on the edge of the table, looking at Cas, “He said there were six sets originally made and given, by Mica, to six hunter clans to, even the odds if you will. Where the others are, how this one got here, where Gabriel got the one I have, he never told me.” Olle hates lying by omission and he has been doing an awful lot of that lately.

Cas smiles, “Sam and Dean have the remnants of the Sword of Brunsvik, but,” he shrugs and his grin, for some reason, gets bigger, “like I said, remnants. Not useful, so much, in a fight with a dragon.”

Olle is impressed they kept it, but he has yet to run across it down here so he has no idea where it could be. If he gets the chance, at some point, he could reforge the sword if they ever do get the chance to kill a dragon; he would need their blood, but the rest would be easy. “They really are destructive, aren't they?” Olle asks shaking his head while Cas just smiles and does this adorable, chuckling nod of agreement. “Come on Cas,” he says with a smile, getting up from his leaning seat on the table, “let's get back to work.” The angel nods and they return to work, leaving the crate on the table in the central room.


	20. Chapter 20

When Sam and Dean have been a full week, Olle breaks down and calls Sam. He would call Lucifer, but he has not heard from the angel, or his brother, so he is assuming nothing drastic has happened; he just wants an update. 

“Agent Hammond,” Sam says picking up his phone, obviously not looking at the caller ID. 

Olle laughs, “Hammond? Jethro Tull, really?”

Sam smiles, Olle can hear it in his voice, “Dean's choice. What's up?”

“Just wanted to see how it was going. I was checking into it here and there have been three more robberies and the one last night; a 22 year old security guard was taken, not killed. Any leads? Any idea what you're dealing with? Is it even your kinda thing?” Olle is sitting at the table in the kitchen eating a grilled chicken salad while Cas sits across from him, coffee cup in hand, listening to both sides of the conversation. 

“Yeah, I know,” Sam says a little exasperated. “Dean has been wondering the same thing. But,” he goes on seriously and a little excited, “there is still no human, everyday explanation for whatever is doing this to be able to melt through solid steel and concrete. Glass just melts, concrete turns to ash, and there are piles of molten metal.”

“Are you sure it isn't a dragon?” Olle wants to know. 

“I don't think so. No reason to believe the ones who were taken were virgins, and our perp is taking more than just gold. Large sums of cash, jewels, and artifacts are missing as well.” Sam is quiet for a minute, Olle can hear him rustling through papers, “I'm still thinking witch or coven and our boy, girl kidnapping is for a ritual of some kind.”

Lucifer appears behind his brother then, facing Olle, to casually say, “I think it's a dragon.” He gets serious then, though, “Did you know Sam eats salads every single day? And Dean drinks an exorbitant amount, even by angelic standards. They bicker and argue constantly. Honestly, the longer I'm with them, the more I wonder at my own stupidity that I failed at the whole apocalypse.”

Olle cannot help but laugh, shockingly, and Sam says, “What?” while Cas looks at him curiously. 

“Sorry,” Olle says still grinning and Lucifer smiles, really smiles, leaning against the wall behind Cas. “If it is witches, and not dragons, any luck on where they are hiding? Where the missing people are? Why they suddenly feel the need to go all Hudson Hawk?”

“Not a clue,” Sam says. “Check this out, though, Dean is out chasing a lead right now, one of the bank tellers from the first heist, turns out all the robberies line up with days he's been missing work.”

“Do you need Cas and I to head that way?” Olle asks seriously. “If it is a whole coven, you'll need backup.”

“I'll get back to you after Dean talks to this guy and we have a chance to regroup,” Sam says. 

“It's a dragon,” Lucifer says knowingly from his place leaned into the wall. “If it is a coven, it isn't, they are dragons who are also witches or witches who are working with a dragon. But, really, it's just a dragon. I haven't found it yet, but I know it!”

Olle tends to agree, pretty heavily, with Lucifer, on this one and decides, no matter what Sam says, to get Cas, the newly found great sword, and head to Pennsylvania as soon as he has had a shower. 

“Tell you what, Sam,” Olle says, “I'll grab a shower and Cas and I will grab some weapons and head your way. If you don't need us, at least we've gotten out of the Bunker and gotten some fresh air.”

“It's a long drive to make for no reason Olle,” Sam says. 

Olle shrugs, “Cas'll help me with the driving, won't you?” he asks the angel. 

“I can,” he says slowly, “if you trust me to drive your truck, yes.”

“There we go, we can be there this time tomorrow,” Olle says. “I'll see you then Sam.”

“Okay,” Sam says, tone making it clear he still is not sure it is a good idea.

An hour later, as he and Cas finish sliding the newly found case of weapons into the back of his truck, the angel looks at him and says, “You think it is a dragon, don't you?”

“I do,” Olle says going around to slide behind the wheel. 

Cas gets in the passenger seat and, buckling up, says, “Why not just tell them that?”

As they pull out of the garage, the satellite radio gets a signal and starts to play Ramble On, but Olle turns it down some and answers Cas, “They wouldn't listen to me, Cas. It's been just the three of you for so long, I'm still an interloper.”

Cas is thoughtful for a moment, “It isn't just you who sometimes feels like an interloper. They have their own language, and they move as a single unit, especially when they hunt. I understand.”

“Exactly,” Olle says. “Now, I'm driving first shift, so get some rest until it's your turn to drive.”

Driving through the night, Olle made great time; he also happened to speed about as badly as Dean, but figured, as long as no one got hurt, and he did not get caught, it was all good. 

**

When Cas woke, at just after seven the next morning, Olle had left the nozzle in the gas tank and gone inside. Stretching, the angel got out of the truck and went around to cap the tank and get the man's receipt. He watched the hunter through the glass while he paid for two cups of coffee, bottled water, and a bag full of snacks. The receipt said they were in Indiana and he could see the tall buildings of what he assumes is Indianapolis, so they must be headed through the city now; this, he remembers from the GPS in the truck, should be close to the halfway point of their journey. Watching the giant of a man cross the parking lot, back toward the gas pumps, the angel realizes he is becoming more and more fascinated by the hunter. He is, Cas is certain, much more than what he says he is, but, also, genuinely trying to help. Cas is certain whatever Olle did to save him from Metatron's spell was worse, and more complex, than he told them it was. He is also confused as to how Olle was able to completely shut him out when he was possessing the doctor. The big man keeps raising more and more questions about himself that he only half answers and Cas has noticed a look of guilt flit, lightening fast, across his face when he gives any of them an answer that probably is only a fraction of the truth, if not an outright lie.

“Black coffee for you,” Olle says coming up to Cas at the pump and handing him his drink. “Sickeningly sweet, creamy dark roast for me.” Taking a drink he smiles, “If only they had an espresso machine.”

The angel takes a drink with a polite, “Thank you,” before asking, “Do you want me to drive?”

Olle nods, going back around the truck to slide in on the passenger side, “I'm gonna drink this, eat this,” he says hold up his bag, “and get some sleep.”

Cas watches Olle slide his own coffee, and a large bottle of water, into the fold down console, beside Cas' coffee, before he pulls a large stick of cheese, a small container of grapes, and a single serving bag of pretzels out and starts to eat. When the truck starts up, the GPS asks if they wish to continue their journey and Cas pushes the 'ok' button before the radio starts playing a song the angel is unfamiliar with. “What is this?” he asks as they pull out into traffic.

“I turned the station,” Olle says around a pretzel. “You were asleep and I was tired of classic rock, this is just a 'classics' station so it's just songs from the 60's and 70's. That,” he points at the radio, “is Gordon Lightfoot.” After a long drink of coffee, Olle says, “Driver picks the music, though, so I guess you can find something you like.”

Cas smiles, “This is fine.”

Olle shrugs and goes back to eating, but he is soon finished so he looks at the angel and says, “I'm gonna get some sleep. You need anything, wake me. Please don't wreck my truck; I've grown very fond of it.” 

“I'll do my best,” Cas says casually. He is, actually, a very good driver; despite learning by observing Dean. Olle nods before he leans his seat back and throws his arm over his eyes.


	21. Chapter 21

Cas focuses on driving, morning rush hour traffic is just starting to get bad so he turns off the satellite radio and finds a local station for the traffic report. Once he has an idea of how long they are likely to be stuck at a crawl, he navigates back to the station Olle was listening to; now playing The Carpenters. Since they are at a dead stop, in six lanes of traffic, the angel spares a look across the cab at the hunter sleeping beside him. 

Olle can feel the angel's eyes on him and, in all honesty, is not sure he wants to go to sleep and risk a thrashing, screaming night terror while Cas drives through morning traffic. Olle refuses to uncover his eyes, though, and he continues to try to sleep, hoping the fact that he is not alone will keep his nightmares at bay. Fleetwood Mac replaces the The Carpenters and by the time 'gold dust woman' fades away, Olle is actually asleep. 

Cas drives confidently through the city and, as traffic is thinning out, he glances over at Olle, who has just started to whimper. The angel is not quite sure what he is hearing but it happens again and the hunter's head starts to thrash. Traffic is still heavy, but moving at a steady pace and the angel knows he cannot move to the side of the road safely so he reaches out with his still recovering Grace and attempts to calm the man, like he so often did, and does, for Dean. 

Expecting a flash of vampire battles or general human warfare, Cas is jerked, and so is the truck,when searing pain, burning cold, and Lucifer's ice-blue eyes flash through his head. Cas pulls the truck back to the center of his lane and jerks his Grace away from the sleeping man until he manages to navigate to the shoulder of the road. Olle is still whimpering quietly and starting to thrash more violently, bringing his whole body into the jerking, terrified movement. Cas looks around to ensure they are safely off the highway before reaching out to the sleeping man with his hand while saying his name quietly. Olle does not wake, but he does jerk, violently, away from the angel's hand while pulling a push-knife from his sleeve and lashing out at Cas, leaving the blade buried in the angel's shoulder. 

Cas winces and pulls his hand away, hoping not to wake the man, but it is too late and he hears Olle panting before he says, “Fucking Christ Cas! Shit! Did I hurt you?” Olle sees the knife then, hilt pushed hard into the angel's coat, with a groan he turns into the window, still trying to catch his breath, “I am so, so sorry!” He knew he should not have let himself sleep, but he was so tired and the music was so relaxing. 

Olle hears the pull of the blade through living flesh and a soft grunt before Cas' voice reaches his ears, “What were you dreaming about? I tried to calm you with Grace but,” he pauses for a moment not sure what to say, “but what I saw was not what I expected.”

Olle shakes his head, folding in on himself, before he says, “It was just a nightmare. Bad memories,” he says quietly, still not completely awake and wishing he had more coffee. “We should get back on the road, Cas. Are you strong enough to heal?” He wants Gabriel, in this instance, more than he has in centuries and not calling out to him is so difficult he has to curl around himself and shut down to stop it. 

“I thought I saw Lucifer,” the angel says still not moving to get back into traffic. 

“Stay outta my head, Cas,” Olle says angrily, turning blazing eyes on the angel. 

Cas visibly flinches at the heat in Olle's gaze, but he shakes his head, “I often reach out to Dean, and Sam, to calm their nightmares. I have seen worse, I'm sure, than you could imagine. I was just not expecting my brother to invade your head; I forgot you said you were taken by him after Gabriel's death.”

Olle doubts the angel would do more than curl up and cry at what he can imagine, just like Gabriel did when he saw, but he laughs anyway, “Archangels can bend time as easy as humans breathe,” he says. “He said time in the Cage ran faster, even, than time in Hell and he me gave a glimpse of it. Crowley said it was three days.”

“How long was it?” the angel does not want to know but, since Olle is talking, has to ask. 

“It was something like a hundred years,” Olle says with a shrug, “I think.” Olle feels his phone buzz then and laughs out right at the caller ID because 'speak of the devil' is literal in this case. He does the only thing he can, he checks his text message. All it said was 'I told you' and there was an address. His phone buzzed again, 'They are a day or so behind me on this. You should get here in plenty of time, but I'll let you know if that changes.' 

“Who is that?” Cas asks because Olle's demeanor had changed so suddenly, he was focused, fully awake, and looked determined not to go back to what this had interrupted. 

“We need to get back on the road,” is all he says. “I'm going to try to go back to sleep.” He looks at Cas for a long minute before he takes a deep breath and asks, “Are you strong enough to put me to sleep? That way I shouldn't dream,” he says quietly. “I just need to get some sleep man, if this is going to turn into a cluster fuck when we get there.”

Cas knows he is avoiding the question, but telling him, at the same time, how important getting to Sam and Dean are; how important it is to be ready when they arrive. “I can do that,” he says. 

Olle nods and settles back in his seat, arm over eyes once again. Cas reaches out with his index finger and, with a touch, Olle is sleeping peacefully. Cas carefully maneuvers the truck back onto the road. Olle sleeps until Cas parks the truck beside the Impala at the least disreputable, hourly motel in the Northern part of Philly. 

**

“Olle,” Cas says quietly, using his Grace to will the man back to wakefulness. 

With a quiet groan, the large man unfold from his slump in the passenger side of the truck. “Hey Cas,” he says trying to stretch and look around, “we're here?”

The angel nods and says, “Just got here.” 

“Thanks Cas,” Olle says then, seriously. “For letting me sleep; for not asking questions.” The angel merely nods and they both get out of the truck. Lucifer is, Olle sees, leaned against the wall outside what he suspects is Sam and Dean's room and he turns to Cas, “I'm gonna double check the crate, make sure it's covered. I'll be right there.” It is not hard for him to see the angel who so tormented his dreams earlier; he told the complete truth when he said Lucifer was no longer his madness and he was sincere when he said he forgave the angel for everything that came before. 

Lucifer is now waiting for him when he rounds the truck to pull open the tailgate. “They are starting to figure it out,” the archangel says. “The dragons are up to something, there are three of them, but I have very limited experience with the species in general so I have no idea what they are cooking up.”

“But the address you gave me? Is that where they are?” Olle asks checking on the crate and, with a tug at the handle, ensuring nothing short of an angel, or a dragon, could move it. 

Lucifer nods, “They are and they are keeping the two people they kidnapped there was well. They haven't been harmed or I would have taken them with me when I found them.” Lucifer reaches out and takes the big man's shoulder as he turns toward the motel, “They are old Olle,” he says seriously. “They felt my presence. They couldn't see me, had no idea what I was, but they knew something powerful was there.”

Olle nods, “That, and the fact there are three of them, makes this so fucking much more difficult to deal with while Sam and Dean are here.” Olle leans against the bumper, “Fuck! I gotta get them the Hell outta here!”

“They won't leave, they figured out about an hour ago that they were dealing with a dragon.” Lucifer leans against the truck beside the hunter and shakes his head, “They are fierce.” He laughs, “They remind me of Gabriel.”

Olle laughs then too, “Do you see now, what he said when he told you they reminded him of you? They are so human, in every way, that it hurts to look at them sometimes,” the doctor admits, “but you're right, they are fierce. They love each other fiercely, they hunt and live fiercely, and they are fiercely human.”

Lucifer nods, “You were right to send me with them. You were right about Sam, he isn't broken only damaged and what I did to him hasn't destroyed him.”

Olle nods. Standing, he turns, gesturing over his shoulder, “I need to get in there. Are you coming? It's alright, you know, if you want to get back to your brother, your books. I won't mind.”

The archangel shakes his head, standing, “I want to see this through. If any of you are hurt, Cas isn't strong enough to heal you. If something happens,” he pauses, gets very serious, “It would be worth exposing us all to save any one of them, if it comes to it.”

Olle smiles, he is so glad the angel before him has come so far so quickly. “I know,” he says before he heads for the motel room door.


	22. Chapter 22

Before he even gets the door open he hears Dean's voice, “Dammit Sam, I told you to tell him not to come! Cas is still recovering and he didn't need to be drug halfway across the country!”

“Dean,” the angel's deep, gravely voice starts, “I am still recovering, but I am not dying and I am perfectly capable of helping!”

Olle is stopped, filling the entire doorway and still having to duck, slightly, to get into the room. “So it is a dragon?” he asks Sam watching Cas and Dean trade soulful, grasping looks. Dean is standing, just out of the shower and only half dressed, by the sink and Cas is across the room, near the table. 

Throwing a t-shirt on, Dean barks, “Fill him in Sam. Come on Cas, let's go get dinner.”

When Olle drops in a chair opposite the younger hunter, Dean and Cas head out. When the door closes behind them, Olle looks over at Sam, “Dude, do you think they,” Olle waggles his eyebrows in a very Gabriel gesture that, oddly, is not lost on Sam and he smiles, a little sad, thinking of the previously dead archangel. 

“No way,” Sam says immediately. “It's all just smoke and mirrors, they've been doing that for years.”

“Someone needs to tell them,” Olle says. “Maybe hitting them over the head with it will make them see it.”

Sam laughs, moving papers around on the table, “It's not that bad.”

Olle chuckles then and cocks his head to the side, “You're use to it Winchester, believe me.” He grabs a beer from the six-pack sitting on the table, popping it open he laughs, “I've had less obscene sex in public, with twins.”

Sam gapes at that for a moment, blushing furiously, because he has no idea what to say. Finally, looking through the papers he keeps moving around, he says, “You paint an interesting picture.” 

Olle is caught, again, flirting with the Winchester. He shrugs, taking a long pull on his bottle, “I was in Spain, we were on their father's boat.” He shakes his head, smiling in fond memory, “They were,” he hums appreciatively at the memory. “I'd met one of them about a week earlier and he introduced me to his sister, when she got back from University for the summer.” He laughs then, and the sound is so infectious Sam does as well, finally making partial eye contact until Olle notices and he looks down again quickly. “The Harbor Master caught us,” Olle laughs again. “Apparently there was video footage, because the boat was moored at their parent's Yacht Club.”

“It's no wonder you and Dean get along so well,” Sam says with mirth in his voice. “I've never been that adventurous.”

“I thought I'd mellow with age,” Olle says, “but it hasn't happened yet.”

Suddenly there is a 'pfft' sound from behind him and Lucifer's voice saying, “You and Gabriel are far, far too much alike to mellow with age. If anything, you both get sharper.” Olle smiles at that wondering how long the angel has been just out of his line of sight. 

Olle leans on the table and turns serious, “What's going on Sam? How did you figure out, for sure, it is a dragon?”

Sam explains how Dean followed 'day off Dave' the bank teller, and he lead them to an address where he met with someone and left with suspicious burns. After that, Sam backtracked Dave to discover this, on a smaller scale, has been happening all over the country for years and Dave just happens to come and go at the same rate as the robberies. “Dean and I figure the guy has been threatened, or recruited, to do the dragon's dirty work,” Sam finishes, getting up to put the now warm beer away and pull two cold ones from the room's mini-fridge. 

Olle tips his new, much colder, bottle, in thanks before asking, “Are you sure Dave isn't a dragon? I know myth suggests dragons don't come in pairs, but Dave the dragon fitting in to case the place while another preps for the robbery and guards the hostages or whatever they are; it would make sense.”

Sam shakes his head, “Doesn't explain why they are taking other things instead of just stones and precious metals.”

Olle huffs a laugh, turning his bottle up, “You get that the only reason they took stones and precious metals back when they were more than just fairy tales is because that's what people used as currency, right? It would make sense they took money and anything, really, of value. They horde wealth, right?”

Sam concedes the point with a nod of his head. “Now that we know, though,” he continues, “I don't know what we are going to do about it.”

Olle smiles then, “I actually brought you a pretty great solution.”

“Huh?” Sam asks about the time the door opens. 

Dean and Cas have returned from the diner a few streets over with burgers for everyone. While the three hunters eat, and Cas sits with a cup of obligatory motel coffee, Olle tells them what he and the angel found tucked away in the far corners of the Bunker's armory. Both men listen in silence, as Olle tells them most of what he told Cas about the weapons, leaving out the part where he was Gabriel's lover because it just feels like something he does not want to share with them; especially while Lucifer listens from his place in the center of Dean's bed with the last book of A Song of Ice and Fire. 

“How did you know it was a dragon?” Dean asks after swallowing the last bit of his second bacon cheese burger. 

Olle shrugs, nearly finished with his own second burger, “I didn't for sure, but all signs pointed. It was dumb luck I found the case when I did.”

“And if you hadn't?” Sam asks, having already finished his food. “Would you have brought us the one Gabriel gave you?”

“When I started hunting in 2006, I focused mainly on just learning everything I could. I haven't had a reason to use any of the weapons,” Olle says. “I'd like to have the chance to.”

“Never killed a demon?” Dean asks, a little curious and, maybe, haughty over Olle's admitting he was not going to kill Crowley the last time he saw him.

Olle smiles, shaking his head, “I didn't say that.” He reaches behind him, beneath his plaid shirt, and pulls an angel blade from his shoulder holster. “This does the trick just fine on demons and just about anything else.”

“Do you walk around armed to the teeth constantly,” Dean asks. 

Olle smiles, putting the blade back where it belongs, “I learned, in this business, it pays to never be unarmed. Call it healthy paranoia coupled with years on deployment.”

Sam smiles, “Can you show us this dragon sword?”

“I need help bringing the case inside,” Olle says getting up; Sam follows him out to the truck.


	23. Chapter 23

Outside, Olle goes over and opens the tailgate. Pulling the case out and turning it so Sam can get the other end, the young hunter does as implied but does not start to lift, “How did you really know it was dragons?” he asks Olle. 

The big man smiles, “Molten metal? Cinder-blocks turned to ash? I told you it was a dragon before you left, but neither of you would listen to me.”

“Well, if you hadn't found this we'd be screwed,” Sam says finally lifting his end of the case. 

“Cas told me,” Olle says going slowly because Sam is walking backwards, “you have the Sword of Brunsvik, but it is in pieces. What happened?”

Sam laughs, “That was years ago, we were trying to stop dragons from summoning Eve, Dean used plastic explosives to try to free the sword from it's stone.”

Olle laughs then, actual confirmation of Dean's stupidity, funnier than half known memories of a TV show. “If you still have all the pieces, and we manage to kill a dragon, the sword can be reforged. All you need is all the pieces and the blood of a dragon.”

“Yeah,” Sam says stepping up onto the sidewalk from the parking lot, “and a smith who knows how to forge magickal weapons, specifically dragon swords.”

Olle nods as they head into the motel room, failing to mention he is exactly that. 

**

When Dean looks through all the weapons, he leaves the great sword for last, checking each one for weight, balance, and special markings, on blade, hilt, and sheath. Sam takes each one after his brother and does the same, commenting here and there about his desire to read the Elvish language used and hoping he can find something that can translate it, back in the Bunker's library; Olle seriously doubts it. 

When Dean finally turned to the great sword, Olle leaned against the sink on the far size of the room and watched. There was no question the hunter was masterful with a blade, after his experiences in Purgatory and carrying the Mark, and he was built like a bull, but he underestimated the sheer size and weight of the weapon. The fact that the sword was comparable to Dean in both size and weight, meant his ability to do much more than use both beautifully sculpted arms to heft the sword was limited. 

“Fuck!” Dean said putting the sword back on his bed where they had laid the case. 

Sam huffed a laugh at his brother and, reaching for the sword, said, “Come on Dean, is it heavy?” The younger hunter took the hilt in both hands and hefted, the sword was easier to wield given Sam's added height, but he was not half as good with a blade as his brother and the weight of it was unwieldy even with all his added lean muscle. “Why the fuck is it so heavy?” Sam asks holding the sword, clearly straining. “These things weren't supposed to weight more than ten or fifteen pounds.”

“Magic of some kind,” Cas says from his seat on Sam's bed. “It must be enchanted.”

Olle comes over then, he has had his fun, and uses one hand to take the sword form Sam. It weighs, he realizes, almost two-hundred and ninety pounds right now. Taking a proper grip on the weapon, as Sam backs away, he pushes his thumb into the sharply pointed black jewel on the hilt and the sword takes the offering of blood this gives. Immediately, the sword is properly weighted and balanced and Olle smiles, “Dragons are hard as fuck to kill,” he says. “When these were made, Mica put in a fail-safe so the sword couldn't be used against the hunter wielding it.”

“Only the blade will cut a dragon and the stone needs blood,” Sam reasons and Olle nods. 

“Why did Gabriel trust you with all this stuff?” Dean asks. 

Olle gives the sword back to Sam, who braces himself for the weight, before he turns to Dean, making eye contact with Lucifer over the hunters shoulder, “I don't know that he trusted me, but he didn't trust the angels. He knew, I guess, that I'd be around for the long haul,” he grins at that. “The things he gave me, what he taught me, won't be lost; I can share it, literally, with generations.”

“That,” Lucifer says, “is the first out and out lie I think I've heard you utter in all of Creation.” He comes over to stand directly behind Dean and stare Olle down to the point he wants to flinch and turn away, “My brother trusts you more than anyone else in Creation; me, him,” he nods his head at Cas, “them,” he nods between the brothers, “even Dad.” He shakes his head with a sad smile, “He is so in-love with you, he's afraid he'd let all of Creation burn just to keep you, so he won't let himself be happy. Neither of you will let yourselves be happy.” With that sadly spoken statement, the archangel leaves and Olle is left alone with those that know nothing about him, not really, and he feels the sudden loss keenly. He also knows the devil has never been more honest.

The rest of the night is spent discussing strategy. Olle listens while the brothers talk about Dave, following him, and trying to catch the dragon, they still think it is only one despite Olle's hinting it could be more. When the brothers have overridden every suggestion Olle makes, he finally shifts back in his chair and starts to drink, paying little attention to what is being said. At around midnight, he takes the empty bottles of whiskey out with him, to throw in the glass recycle by the dumpster, and makes his way to the office, where he gets himself a room. 

Sam is leaned against the driver's door of Baby when Olle comes back. “Were we boring you?” the hunter asks. 

Olle ignores him, going around to the back driver's door on his truck, to get his bag. 

“It is not something we do on purpose,” Sam says seriously. “We are just use to it being only us.”

Olle shakes his head, stopping in front of the car to look at Sam, “I'm a soldier Sam,” he says seriously. “Despite whatever else I'm capable of, I'm good at this; it's all I've ever been good at.” He shrugs and laughs, “Breaking necks and cashing checks; it's what I do.”

Memory, of ice blue eyes staring at him, full, smirking lips saying the same thing, make Sam move closer to the bigger man, “You're not a mercenary, Olle. You're not a killer either.”

Olle laughs at that, knowing he should not be talking to the hunter right now; he is not drunk, but he is swimmy headed enough to say enough of the absolute truth to get his point across, “You don't know me Sam, at all. You have no idea the things I've done, the things I'm capable of.” He stares Sam down, blazing hazel eyes boring into the hunter's intelligent depths, “The two of you should listen to me or you're going to get yourselves killed!” Olle does not give Sam a chance to answer before he marches three doors down, to his own room, and disappears inside.


	24. Chapter 24

Dropping his bag by the door, Olle strips and heads straight for the shower. When he has washed the road, the whiskey, and his irritation away, he drops, naked, on the bed and sleeps. Several hours later, he wakes up panting, tangled in the sheets, and calling Gabriel's name but, instead of the angel he wants, Cas appears at the foot of the bed. 

“Are you alright?” the angel asks coming around the bed. 

“Yeah, Cas,” Olle pants, “I'm okay.”

The angel looks at him curiously, “Alcohol usually helps both Sam and Dean sleep. I had thought you would sleep soundly. Is this an everyday occurrence?”

Olle chuckles, disentangling himself from the sheets, to walk over to the sink, splash water on his face and drink a few handfuls, curbing the beginnings of a pounding head, “Every night Cas, usually. Check the blueprints, I've got the only sound proof room in the bunker that isn't a holding cell or a dungeon.” He watches Cas turn away, even in the dark, when he sees Olle is naked, he smiles and, with laughter in his voice, says, “You have picked up human sensibilities.” Sliding back in bed, shifting everything around so he is sleeping on the driest parts of the bed, he asks, “Did you need something or did you just hear my nightmares?”

Olle feels Cas' Grace slide across him and the bed, both now clean and dry, he sees the angel's hand on the foot of the bed, “I heard you, but I was waiting for Sam and Dean to go to sleep so I could ask you something.” Olle gestures with his hand and Cas takes a seat on the foot of the bed; where his hand was moments ago, “You know far too much for Gabriel to have simply taught you, in the short time you knew each other. Did he, in some way, impart on you a compendium of knowledge?”

“Why do you ask?” Olle wants to know, sitting up slightly to watch the angel. 

“When I was taken by Metatron, during his time as ruler of Heaven, he used the angel tablet to conjure a pseudo-reality where Gabriel attempted to impart upon me a desire to rise up against Metatron; making me the villain in his warped plot.” Cas turns then, to look at Olle, “He became irate at my lack of knowledge where literary and pop-culture references were concerned so he merely touched me,” Cas puts his finger to his own forehead, “and imbued me with his collective knowledge concerning these subjects.”

Gabriel had done that, once, at the very, very beginning, not long after they first met, so Olle could communicate with all the different Faye, and that was, also, how Gabriel taught him Enochian. Olle does not feel, then, that it is stretching the truth to say, “It was the easiest way for me to learn, especially languages, very quickly. I spoke fourteen, not including specific dialects, but I knew none of the Elvish languages before we met. He taught me Enochian that way as well.”

“And do you believe he could have given you more,” Cas asks, “more than what he said he was?”

“I don't know, Cas,” Olle admits. “I never asked. It was a long time ago, I don't know that I could tell, now, if it was something I learned or something he gave me. Why?”

“Do you think Metatron could have really brought him back?” Cas asks quietly, like he is hopeful but does not dare let himself believe it was possible. 

Olle is fully awake now, he has no idea what to say. The heartbreak in Cas' voice is familiar, he remembers Gabriel looking at him after Cas was gone, asking, “Do you think Michael will let him come back to me?” He hates the jealous feeling suddenly rising in his chest; knowing Cas does not even remember why he loves his brother so much, remembering the righteous anger in the archangel's eyes when he saw Cas injured, and the look on Lucifer's face when he said he made his brother leave after Olle left him alone with Metatron. 

Olle is slow to answer and it comes out thoughtfully hesitant, “Even resurrecting you, Cas, is beyond anything but actual God power. Only your father could have done that. To bring back an archangel,” he shakes his head, “I doubt even the Angel Tablet, which was meant to guard humans against angels if I understand it correctly, could have let the scribe do that. We can ask him,” he says, “when we get back. I'll put the Witch's Collar back on him and we can ask him to know for sure.”

Cas shakes his head, “If he is alive, I don't want to know. I don't want to know why he has abandoned us to Amara, if he is out there.”

“I don't think he would,” Olle says quickly. “He didn't abandon you to Lucifer. He wouldn't abandon you to Amara.”

“Thank you,” the angel says standing. “I'll wake you in the morning. Thank you.” Cas goes back to his seat at the table in Sam and Dean's room, but not before he puts Olle into a deep, peaceful sleep. 

**

Olle woke, from another Cas induced sleep, with a haze of angel mojo surrounding him; his body cannot process Grace the same way other humans do. Too much of it used on him too often gives him a power hangover, because he stores it instead of it dissipating through his body like everyone else. He drags himself into a hot shower at barely sunrise before trudging into Starbucks a couple blocks over and downing a Venti triple red eye while waiting on more coffee and breakfast sandwiches for himself and the brothers. Box of coffee, bag of sandwiches, and second triple red eye in hand, he makes his way back to the motel and bangs on their door with his boot until Cas lets him in. 

“You look awful,” the angel says stepping aside so Olle can put everything down on the table. 

“Thanks Cas,” Olle says falling into a chair while the brothers groan themselves awake at the noise. “Hot and blunt as always, don't ever change mate,” he says fishing two oxcy he grabbed from his first-aid kit in the truck before going to Starbucks, out of his pocket and downing them with the last of his coffee. He needs to kill something, fight something, or fuck; get rid of all this pent up, straining energy the Grace has left him with. His skin feels stretched tight and his body is humming with the residual power. It has left a pounding in his head and an ache in his bones like he is a teenager again; growing so fast it is painful. 

“What?” Dean asks sitting up in bed, scratching his head. Olle gets a chill down his spine at the husky, sleep rough quality to that voice already dripping with so much sex it is hard to ignore. 

“I brought coffee and breakfast,” Olle says knowing they all heard him because Sam laughed a little, where he is sitting, shirtless and gorgeous, blankets pooled around his waist, hair sleep ravaged, eyes still heavy; and Cas is still giving him a confused look. Olle shakes his head, starting to pull food out of the bag, and hopes the oxcy or the coffee start to help soon; he wonders if, maybe, he should try another shower; cold this time. 

“Thanks, man,” Sam says, voice not as erection inducing as Dean's, but pretty close. Olle looks up to give him a sandwich and stops dead, Sam is right there, inches away, in just navy blue boxer-briefs. The heat of his skin is radiating onto Olle's face and if he leans just a few inches to his right he could bite the perfect muscles of Sam's well formed obliques. The nearly naked hunter seems oblivious to the ogling Olle is doing as he grabs the offered sandwiches before getting a cup of coffee and dropping into a chair across from the distracted doctor. 

Dean, however, Olle thinks, may have noticed, because he comes over, in a t-shirt and green boxer-briefs, giving Olle a hard look as he takes his sandwich, drops into his seat, and pours himself a coffee. “Are we gonna do this today, or what?” he asks watching Olle unwrap his sandwich and start to eat, he is slow, like every move is painful. “What's up with you today man?” Dean asks finally as Olle fills his empty cup from the box of coffee and starts to add sugar. 

Olle shakes his head, stirring half-and-half into his coffee, “Rough night I guess. I feel like I drank a liquor store and got the shit kicked outta me by a platoon of marines. I need a massage and a good fuck,” he says turning up his now perfect coffee. 

Dean chuckles into his sandwich, “Don't we all? Sammy and I were talkin' about stayin' a couple days in Philly when we were done; we can do that while Sam and Cas see the Liberty Bell,” Dean laughs clapping the big man on the back. 

Olle gives Dean a look before he turns to Sam, who just shrugs into his coffee, “Okay Dean. You need a wing man, I'm your guy.”

“Good,” he says popping the last of his breakfast in his mouth and talking around it. “Let's kill a dragon then; it's Thursday and I'd rather be more pleasantly occupied tomorrow night.”


	25. Chapter 25

Olle forces Dean to dig through the Impala's trunk until he finds all the pieces of the broken dragon sword and he spends a couple hours wrapping the longer pieces with leather, turning them into makeshift knives. He mentions the importance of collecting some of the dragon's blood so the sword can, hopefully, be reforged one day and Dean seems all for it even though Sam points out, again, their need for a proper bladesmith. Once he is done, all four have a piece of the sword, Dean carrying the largest piece with the hilt attached, and Olle being given the Elvish sword because his height gives him an advantage when wielding the blade. 

Olle drives because the great sword will not fit in Baby's trunk, and they make their way to the address Lucifer gave him, where Dean followed Dave. Olle had prayed to the archangel before they left the motel, apologizing for being a classic fool, admitting Lucifer was correct in everything he said, and telling him where they were going; he was not sure he expected the angel to follow them so he smiled a little when they got out of the truck and Lucifer was leaned against the door they were headed toward. 

“They are all three inside,” the invisible angel says. “I've been listening, they are planning on using the two virgins they took in some sort of spell. Sorry about that, apparently I was wrong and they are not just normal dragons, they are dragons using witchcraft.”

Olle chuckles and thinks at the archangel, “Well, you can't be right all the time, Luce.” 

The archangel shrugs and is about to speak but Cas' voice interrupts, “Dean,” he reaches out a hand to stop their progress, “this building has been warded against angels.” 

“I was just about to say that,” Lucifer pouts at his brother; Olle wishes they could see him, it is hilarious. 

“Was it warded yesterday?” Olle asks Lucifer and Dean. 

The archangel shakes his head to indicate he was, actually inside the building yesterday. “I think sensing my presence made them cautious.”

The hunter shakes his head, “Don't have a clue, wasn't inside, it could have been; didn't have an angel with me to check.”

“If they are warding whatever they are doing against angels,” Sam says, “this could be serious, very serious. We gotta get in there and find out what is going on.”

“So what,” Olle asks serious and a little angry, “we charge in there? There is at least one dragon, probably more, who may, or may not, be or be working with a witch? I can be suicidal, that's fine, but you boys don't come back.”

“He does have a point,” Cas says. 

Finally, everyone agrees and Olle herds them all back to the truck, where he divests himself of all of his weapons before changing into running clothes and stuffing one of the small dragon knives he cobbled together inside his shoe and another between the armband and case for his phone before swallowing one in his huge palm, where no one will notice it until he needs them to. He plugs his headphones in and asks, “Would you believe I'm lost while jogging in an unfamiliar city?”

“You're the size of a house, dude,” Dean says watching Olle take the battery out of his phone and put it in the key pocket on his pants. “Why would they believe you're not a hunter?”

Olle grins, “You'd be surprised what people believe, you just gotta sell it!” 

Dean just shakes his head but they all wait in the truck while Olle jogs around the building, coming at them from behind. Lucifer is waiting for him and comments, “It's a good thing they decided to hide out in the basement of a Church right in the middle of the city; you'd look pretty funny lost nowhere near a hotel.”

Olle chuckles as he pulls open the door to the vestibule and comes inside. “Hello,” he calls out loudly. 

Lucifer is standing on the other side of the door, angel proofing preventing his entrance, and he is chuckling. “You're really good at this,” he says. 

Olle shrugs, finding the angel proofing sigils carved into the door and uses the dragon blade to cut through them. “Stay here, if they sense you who knows what will happen.” Coming further inside, down the center isle, he calls out again, “Hello? I was jogging and my phone died.” He starts to sound a little upset and confused then, “I'm, I'm here on business and I'm lost. I don't know how to get back to my hotel.” He starts back down the isle, on the opposite side, and says, quietly, like he is giving up, “Is anybody here? Why would the place be unlocked if no one was here?”

Back in the vestibule, he heads in the direction of where the offices, and the stairs, should be. He turns the corner near the stairs and is brought up short by a man, about six-feet tall with gray eyes and dark hair, “Can I help you?” he says easily. 

Olle laughs, looking embarrassed, and scratches his head, “My phone died and I'm lost. I'm staying at Rittenhouse and I don't know how to get back there from here. Could I, maybe, use your phone to call a cab or something?”

The dragon smiles at him saying, “Sure, follow me,” before he heads downstairs, expecting Olle to follow. 

Olle holds the knife in his hand loosely, waiting. He knows the dragon was too happy to see him; half-way down the stairs it hits him why, and he feels like an idiot. His body is, technically, only a few weeks old and it is totally virginal, he has been so distracted by so much, he has not even masturbated since he drug himself out of the ground behind the Bunker. “I thought the office was upstairs,” he say nervously then. 

“I'm not the pastor, just a deacon, I don't have a key,” the dragon covers easily. “You'll have to use the phone in the kitchen.”

“Oh,” Olle laughs, “okay.”

At the bottom of the stairs, in front of the closed door, he sees 'day off Dave,' who is a dragon, and a guy about Olle's size, also a dragon, talking quietly. They stop when they notice they are no longer alone. “Who's he?” the big guy asks, but he stops when Olle's virginal state registers. The chuckling grin on his face makes Olle shudder, he knows what dragons do to virgins they don't intend to sacrifice for nefarious purposes. 

Olle chuckles to himself at the vagaries of life and how ridiculous the notion of virginity, and its importance, is. “Hi,” Olle says holding out his hand, “Dr. Mikhail Wallander.” He laughs, “I got lost jogging and my phone died on me. I just need to call a cab.” He gestures at the guy who brought him downstairs, “He said I could use the phone in the kitchen?”

Olle is trapped between the three of them now, the stairs to his right blocked by direction guy, a wall behind him, and day off Dave in front of the closed door to his left. He flexes his closed hand around the knife and keeps eye contact with the biggest of the dragons while it says, “Tell me something doc, how'd a guy like you manage to live his whole life and still be a virgin?” 

The chuckles and interested grins the three of them have let Olle know the two victims inside are intended for a specific purpose and he thinks fast, the whole time he is talking he is reaching out with his mind to find the angel proofing Cas sensed. There! A door down the hallway directly in front of him; it must lead outside. That must be where Sam and Dean are waiting. He looks between the three of them and answers, “I'm saving myself for marriage. I'm a good Catholic boy, my mother would kill me otherwise!”

The dragons laugh and close in on him, the big one in front of him and Dave and direction guy on either side. He needs to hit big guy with a death blow before the other two can touch him or he is dead, or worse. He slides the knife down, into a proper grip, and is ready to lung for the big guy's eye when Dean, apparently sick of waiting, bursts through the door at the end of the hall. 

Olle curses and wonders how many times he is going to have to die for them before they stop doing stupid things.


	26. Chapter 26

Dragon fire erupts from the huge man in front of him as he turns toward Dean and Olle has no choice but kick big guy in the knee so he stumbled and to kill the guy to the right while Dave disappears inside the locked room behind him. Olle catches a glimpse of the two hostages, tied to metal chairs in the center of a room that looks like it is ritual ready, after he has driven his blade through the other dragon's eye and into his brain; dropping him before he can do anything. Olle attempts to kick the door open, but realizes it has been locked and magically sealed. Leaving the hostages, and Dave, Olle runs after the other dragon as it chases Dean out the door. 

Outside, Olle sees Cas laying unconscious on the pavement near where the dragon blew the door open. He quickly scans the parking lot and sees Lucifer, still invisible, using his Grace to keep Sam and Dean shielded from the gusts of fire the dragon is, literally, breathing at them. Sam shifts forward, though, and is caught in the pressure of the breath, and knocked backwards into a well manicured bush. Dean is headed straight for Olle's truck, and the Elvish sword, but the dragon rushes Dean then and the hunter is forced to lose his jacket and over-shirt as they catch fire. Wiggling free of his burning clothes, Dean is forced to the ground and he scurries backwards like a crab. Lucifer comes up behind the dragon then and Olle sees him pull his archangel sword out of the ether to drive into the dragon's back. The creature wails but does not fall; Dean takes the opportunity to crawl beneath Olle's huge truck, toward the bed and the sword. Lucifer is flung off the dragon, taking his sword with him, and beast heals immediately. Olle throws one of his two other blades at the dragon then, hitting him in the hamstring, and he staggers forward into Olle's truck. 

Olle knows what is going to happen then and he screams, “Mother fucker!” The dragon starts to writhe and shift, like a shapeshifter shedding skin, everything around the dragon starts to glow with heat and energy and Olle's truck, where the beast lies, begins to melt into the pavement. Paint sizzles, the front tires burst, plastic bubbles and drips, while metal warps, groans, glows, and begins to pool under the truck. The dragon takes flight then, resembling a giant bat now instead of a man, and Olle is forced to duck as the creature swoops down and attempts to grab him. 

Looking around, Sam is coming up behind him, Cas is awake and instantly at the back of the truck checking on Dean, even Lucifer is standing where the dragon was moments ago, looking at the carnage of Olle's vehicle. “You son of a bitch, Winchester!” Olle swears, stalking over to grab Dean by the wrist and jerk him out from under the back of what is left of Olle's truck. “You can't wait a god damn minute when someone is doing something you haven't decided upon, can you?” Olle does not stop moving while he berates Dean, though, he just grabs the sword from the back and turns to stalk back inside.

As he is passing through the door an angry thought abolishes the angel proofing and the three follow him down the hallway to the still magically sealed door and dead dragon in front of it. Again, Olle does not stop, he simply kicks the door open and stalks inside. He is wholly focused on searching the room for any signs of Dave the dragon but he vaguely registers Sam, Dean, and Cas trying to free the two virgin hostages. Apparently, something is preventing them from doing just that and Olle thinks he will deal with whatever that is as soon as he has found the dragon. 

He stalks back out of the room and, at the foot of the stairs, Lucifer says, “He's in the sanctuary.”  
With a nod, Olle is up the steps and charging through the main doors from the vestibule. He is met by Dave the dragon holding a sword almost as big as the one Olle has, and the dragon sneers at the man, “When Kristoff returns and we complete the ritual, we will be untouchable!” He strikes out at Olle who deflects easily. “I'm going to kill your friends,” the dragon says then, “tainted by their own desires, all of them! You though,” he smiles pointing at Olle with the tip of his sword, “I'm going to keep you. Kristoff and I will enjoy you, thoroughly, before we punish you for killing Marcus!”

Olle grins, maniacally, at the dragon and says, “I can honestly say, I've never been double stuffed by dragons, shame you'll be too dead for me to try it.” 

The two begin to fight then, trading blows of steel while Olle is also forced to dodge dragon fire. The church begins to burn around them and the sprinklers start to rain down but still they fight. The dragon is not as good with a blade as Olle, but has the added advantage of breathing fire and, also, being fireproof. Olle pushes on, though, and the dragon soon backs himself up the steps of the pulpit and flush against the empty baptismal. 

Unbeknownst to Olle, or Dave, Cas and the brothers have freed the hostages, and come upstairs searching for the doctor. They watch while the big man unleashes on the dragon and, finally, cuts him in half like at the end of Rob Roy; most of Dave's upper body lands in the baptismal as the rest falls to the cheap red carpet, staining it a crimson-black with blood. 

Olle turns, chest heaving from exertion, to notice Cas has put out the fire and fixed most of the damage to the building. He leans against the baptismal, attempting to catch his breath, while the three make their way down the left most isle toward him. As Sam starts up the steps, the crash of breaking glass is heard and all eyes turns to see Kristoff, still bat shaped, crash through a stained glass window at the far end of the room. 

Landing a mere ten or so feet from Olle, the dragon's shift back to a more human form is so smooth it reminds everyone of a CGI effect in a vampire movie. “You killed both my brothers virgin, how'd you manage that?” the dragon wants to know. 

Dean makes a run for the creature's back then, with his largest piece of the broken sword, but Kristoff catches him by the throat and, taking the sword, he lifts him up until they are eye level before he throws the hunter into the stealthily approaching Sam and Cas. The three of them land in a heap at the foot of the steps, Olle sees Lucifer healing Cas and the brothers. Knowing they are okay and, mostly, out of earshot, he says to Kristoff, “You're too strong, too powerful, too old, to just be robbing banks. What were you trying to do with the virgins?”

“The mother of our mother has returned. She will unmake Creation,” Kristoff says not coming closer but staring more inquisitively at Olle. “I would use them to bring our mother back, to help us stop the Darkness.”

Olle laughs then, cannot help but. “You want Eve to help you stop Amara?” He laughs again, “She would rise up with her mother and help with our destruction.”

“How old are you?” the dragon asks suddenly in a language Olle knows has been long, long lost. 

“Her father is dead, dragon, her uncles are fierce and they would destroy her if she returned. No more sending her to Purgatory, she would return to the ether in a billion, billion pieces,” Olle says sagely, in the same language. 

“When I arrive in Purgatory, find my brothers, and tell my mother who took my life; what do you believe she will do to you when others finally succeed and bring her here?” Kristoff asks. 

Olle laughs at this as he pushes off the baptismal and stalks toward the dragon, “I believe you should tell her the Ancestor took your life and ask her who banished her there in the beginning.” Recognition of Olle's old name registers in the dragon's eyes and he starts to circle, hoping to get to Dave's sword. “Be sure to let her know about her father, as well.”

The fight with Kristoff is much harder than with Dave, Olle has to worry about keeping Sam, Dean, and Cas safe; even with Lucifer watching over them. He lets the dragon find the sword for no other reason than he would rather fight a blade than a fire breathing bat. Cas forces the brothers to retreat to the back of the room while Olle charges Kristoff and the four take in sharp breaths when the doctor is seemingly consumed by dragon fire. The shock on their faces as the sword absorbs the fire matches that of the dragon breathing it and Olle chuckles. “I have your father's sword little one,” he says quietly. 

The bellow of rage that erupts from the dragon then makes the walls shake, and he moves toward the hunter with the strong, precise movements of a well trained swordsman. The dragon manages to push Olle to the edge of the dias and he looks, briefly, over his shoulder before he pushes forward to throw Kristoff off of him and back several feet before he can jump down. 

The dragon follows Olle, using his weight to drive himself at the man as he jumps down and Olle stumbles, falling on his ass in the center isle. Kristoff, though, tumbles down with him and they roll. Olle grunts in pain as the blade Dean had, that Kristoff had been using along with Dave's sword, slides between Olle's ribs and into his right lung. Olle shoves the dragon sword as far as he can up the isle toward Sam and Dean before he continues to roll, using the position to trap Kristoff's sword beneath him while the dragon pins him down. Olle knows he is going to drown soon enough but Kristoff has his hands around the big man's neck and he can feel the blazing heat start to build on his skin and he reacts as quickly as he can, not wanting to lose his head. He lets go of the dragons arms and takes hold of the blade in his side, forcing it free with a slick, sucking sound; Olle feels the dragon's left hand come out to grab his forearm. Olle tries to scream as he burns but he cannot, his chest cavity is filling with blood, his lungs have collapsed, and his throat is not only being constricted, but seared. He wonders what Sam and Dean are doing, if they have gotten to the sword yet, if Cas and Lucifer will know to get them the hell out of there. 

The angels and the hunters watch as Olle scrabbles with the dragon, burning and dying. Sam notices, though, as he lunges for the sword, Olle's left leg bend and his arm reach down. He wonders, as it all happens in slow motion, not only for Olle but for the others as well, how the big man can still form coherent thoughts and plans while he is in such apparent agony. It is all over quickly enough, then, when Olle pulls the dragon knife he made from his shoe, driving it into Kristoff's back, severing his spinal column. The dragon jerks, falling sideways off the big man and Olle rolls with him, pulling the knife free and driving it into the dragon's heart before collapsing, mostly dead, on top of him. Lucifer wants to go to the man, reveal himself, and heal him, but Olle's last logical thought is to tell him to leave him be.


	27. Chapter 27

Olle is as dead as he can be by the time anyone gets to him. Sam is the first one there and, rolling the big man off the dead dragon, he checks for a pulse before saying, “He's dead.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean says coming up to stand over him, “let's clean up this mess first and deal with him after. He's not going anywhere.”

“He's dead Dean,” Sam says angrily, “because you fucked up! You just couldn't wait, could you?” he asks standing up and staring his brother down. “He was pissed at you before he got killed, how's he gonna fell when he's himself again, huh? His truck is totaled, and we drug him across the country for no other reason than we wouldn't listen to him before we left the Bunker!” 

“That's bullshit Sam, and you know it!” Dean says defensively. “Now, stop bitching and help me; this is gonna take all day to clean up and I gotta go get Baby so we can clean out the truck before anyone sees it and decides to take a closer look. We aren't exactly in the middle of nowhere here, Sammy; it's just a matter of time before someone notices the melted truck in the empty church parking lot!”

After that little argument, clean up is quick and efficient. They released the hostages, Cas, and Lucifer, altering their memories so they believe they escaped from Dave's basement and ran. No one notices Lucifer helping, but it makes it easier. He cleans up the ritual space downstairs, breaks Olle's neck so he is no longer in pain, fixes what he can pass off as Cas' work, collects all the pieces of the broken dragon sword, and enough of Marcus' blood to reforge the sword while Dean and Cas go for Baby and Sam gathers the dragons, placing the bodies in body bags he found in the toolbox on Olle's truck. Olle gets his own bag as well, but the hunter cannot make himself zip it closed over the immortal's face, it just seems wrong to him for some reason. 

By the time Dean gets back, taking longer than Sam expected, he has done all he can to remove any signs of what happened here. Cas will have to repair the window and remove the deep bloodstains from the carpet, but everything else is finished. Dean shows up with Baby and Cas is driving a white moving van. 

“What's going on Dean?” Sam wants to know. 

“I got a plan Sammy, don't worry,” he says pulling the door up on the back of the van. 

Sam helps Dean remove the toolbox from the truck and put it inside the van before they empty the truck of every other thing, using boxes Dean picked up from somewhere, to pile it all in the moving van. When they are done, Dean removes the tag, scrapes the sticker off, and files off the VIN number while Sam and Cas load all four bodies into the back of the van as well. No one notices that Cas is not the one who fixed the window or cleaned up the blood. 

“I don't know about this Dean,” Sam says, clearly uncomfortable. “Putting him back there with them just doesn't seem right.”

“Don't worry Sam, we aren't going to bury them all together,” Dean says. 

The fact that Olle woke them just after sunrise means they are finished with all of this by lunchtime and, before two, they have made their way to an abandoned building, used for manufacturing, close to the river. “These bags are biodegradable, they burn,” Dean says helping Sam drag Kristoff's body into the concrete pit they have already dumped Dave and Marcus into. 

“Great, Dean,” Sam huffs as his brother reaches for the gasoline and he pulls a pack of matches from his pocket. 

Cas has built a small pyre in the bottom of the pit and is now piling more wood and dry boxes on top of the bodies while Dean douses it all in gas before Sam throws the matches down and watches the fire burn. 

“Now Olle,” Dean says matter-of-factly, once the fire looks steady enough to keep going without tending. 

They dig a shallow grave in the soft earth at the river's edge and put him there. 

“Are we supposed to burn him?” Dean asks. 

“I'm not sure,” Sam says. “We didn't ever really ask him how it worked; did we?”

Cas mentions, then, “He told us his body must be returned to the Earth. I believe we burn him and it will begin the resurrection process.” Both brothers nod and, using Holy Oil to ensure a clean, thorough burning, they mix it with gasoline to speed up the process before covering the charred remains in earth. 

“You both need rest and food and a shower,” Cas says sitting down on nearby railroad pilings when the job is done. “You should return to the motel; I can call you when he is returned.”

“What if we were wrong Cas?” Sam asks worriedly. “What if he is really dead?”

“He is not,” the angel says. “His soul, whatever little bit of it there is, I can feel it is still here. The vessel is not empty.”

“Okay Cas,” Sam says. “Thanks. Just, just call me; okay.”

At two o'clock that morning, Cas looks up from his seat and sees the muddy soil over Olle's burnt corpse beginning to shift and move. The angel pulls out his phone and calls Sam. When the hunter picks up, the angel says, “I believe he is back, we should be ready to go by the time you get here. Sam,” he says as an afterthought, “bring something to keep the mud out of Dean's car.”

Sam chuckles as Cas notices a hand breaching the surface of the ground, “Dean is sleeping. I'll bring the moving truck and some stuff to clean him up with. See you soon Cas.”

Olle is laying naked, covered in dirt and mud, looking up at the sky when Sam pulls up twenty minutes later. He has had enough time to grill Cas about what happened after he 'died' and is just waiting on Sam. His stomach growls loudly as he sits up to shield his eyes from the headlights. “Did you bring me soap and something I can wash with?” is the first thing he says when Sam gets out of the truck. 

Sam throws him a bar of soap, still in the box, and a hand towel from the motel, “Knock yourself out. Water's that way,” he says pointing, “need a flashlight?”

With a laugh, Olle says, “I'll be fine. Bring me some clothes when I call?” Sam nods and Olle heads toward the water. Sam sits beside Cas, but they do not speak while they listen to Olle cleaning himself off in the Delaware River. About fifteen minutes later they hear, “You got a towel for me, Sam?”

Sam goes back to the truck and pulls out the clothes Olle took off this morning, and a towel, before using a flashlight to pick his way toward the water's edge. Sam holds the light, watching Cas watch the stars, while Olle dries and makes sure he is clean, then Sam picks his way back to Cas, and his seat, while Olle dresses. “Weapons, Sam, man? I feel naked; Jesus!” is what they hear before the big man gets close enough to be seen in the barely there moonlight. 

Sam laughs, “They're in the truck, come on.” 

While Olle is standing by the passenger door, arming himself, he says, “I'm starving, lets hit up that 24 hour place we passed on the way to the church this morning. We gotta go back there anyway.”

“To the church?” Cas asks confused. 

“Yeah,” Olle says stepping back to let Cas in before he slides in. “I'm sure you guys did a great job cleaning out the truck, but I had a few things hidden and I need to make sure I get them.”

“Okay,” Sam says starting the engine. “Food first then church or what?”

“Food first Sam, always,” Olle laughs.


	28. Chapter 28

At the restaurant, Olle orders a mountain of food and Sam sits back to watch him eat. The look on the young hunters face is a little worried, but Olle just grins. “My body is totally depleted, remember, it has never had food in it before. I'm running on absolute empty with a metabolism that is trying to support a guy my size. If I don't glut myself at first, I'll start to burn muscle mass and I'll never catch up. I went into organ failure and died before I figured that out.” 

“Oh,” Sam says. “I never thought about it like that.” Something dawns on him then, “Is that why the dragons called you a virgin?”

Olle laughs around a bite of bagel and cream cheese while he waits on his deluxe pancake breakfast with extra bacon, extra homefries, scrambled eggs, and extra pancakes. “Yeah, it is.”

“So you didn't?” Sam just trails off. 

“When Sam?” Olle asks after a drink of coffee. “Hanging out at the Bunker? Hunting vampires with your brother? Saving Cas from Metatron? I haven't exactly been anywhere I'd meet anyone I'd be interested in,” he says shaking his head. 

“I get that, I guess,” Sam says shaking his head; not sure, at all, why he asked the question.

Food shows up then and they are quiet while Olle eats. When the waitress asks about dessert, though, Olle says, “How much for a whole Lemon Meringue pie? Could I get a fresh one, not been cut? To go, of course. I'd like two pieces of chocolate cheesecake right now; on the same plate please. Sam,” he asks, “you want something?”

The hunter just shakes his head, but, when the waitress walks off, he asks, “Why are you getting a whole pie?”

“You left your brother sleeping, awesome you by the way, but he is gonna be pissed we ate without him,” Olle says, absolutely certain that is a fact. “Dean loves pie. Dean love lemon meringue pie. And, I'm gonna rip your brother a new one when I see him, over my truck and getting me killed, but I'm gonna give him pie, to make him feel better after.”

“I am sorry about that,” Sam says. “What you did to those dragons, though, was scary good. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

Olle just shrugs, digging into the dense chocolatey goodness the waitress just sat in front of him. “I told you,” he says around a bit of cheesecake, “It's what I do. I can't be terribly good at it though, I did get killed.”

“That wasn't your fault,” Sam says sadly. “If Dean hadn't stormed in,” the hunter trails off shaking his head and Olle just nods, going back to his dessert.

Olle pays, taking the boxed pie with him, and they stop by the church on their way back to the motel. The hidden compartment on the truck, beneath the driver's seat, contains mostly fake I. D. s and cash but it also has pictures of Olle from his life in Finland; before he remembered who he was. They are not only important to him but telling about who the truck belonged to before it was inexplicably melted. 

“Let's go,” Olle says closing the door on the truck. “I'd like to get some sleep. I told your brother I'd be his wing man tonight and I'd like to get some sleep before I try to get Dean Winchester laid.”

Sam laughs at that, “He never seems to have any trouble doing that himself.”

“Yeah,” Olle says buckling up while Sam starts the truck, “but he is going to want to hook me up as well. I'll have to spend all night fending off the women he throws at me and the ones who take it upon themselves,” he shakes his head, already tired. 

“Got somebody in particular in mind to pop your new cherry?” Sam asks jokingly. He chalks up his flirtatious attitude to lack of sleep and exhaustion; like the first time he met Gabriel outside Crawford Hall. 

Olle laughs, “I'm just getting awfully old to give it up for some random person I meet in a bar. I'll have saved myself, what, a whole,” he thinks back, then, to the last time he had sex, when he and Gabriel made slow, passionate love; before they decided it was a bad idea. He stops talking, unable to go on, because he aches for the angel now. Sam must see something on his face, he has no idea what, but the hunter keeps quiet, no pressing.

They get back to the motel and Olle goes straight to his room, puts Dean's pie in the refrigerator, and strips down before crawling in bed and going to sleep. He dreams of dragon fire and doom and Hobbits and old, old memories of amber eyes, Cheshire grins, and strong hands touching him for the first time; exactly how he needs. 

**

Olle wakes up at a little past eleven, hard and aching, damp spot on the front of his boxer-briefs. Half remembered dreams of whiskey colored eyes and mumbled words of Enochian make him groan while he stretches, refusing to touch himself until he clams down enough to picture someone else, anyone else, besides the archangel in his dreams. Turning on the water, Olle gets in the shower to wash the dirty river off his skin and the sleep from his eyes. He washes his hair and his whole body before his hand settles, soapy, on his still aching cock. He steps into the water to rinse, using the excuse to rub his free hand down his body, over his sensitive nipples, scratching his blunt nails along his abs and he hisses with the first slow stroke of his hand; from base to tip. Olle leans into the wall, head braced on his left arm, so the water cascades down his back while he settles into the slow, even pace of his right hand. Eyes tightly shut, he pushes away all thought of Gabriel, of anyone, because they all turn into him anyway, but that leaves him with nothing but sensation to focus on; and that is not enough, right now, to push him over the edge. He hears Cas' voice then, saying his name; the angel must have just appeared in his room. That voice, gravel and thunder and sex, vibrates through his body and, with the mental picture of those too blue eyes and that beautiful mouth, it helps him find release. Rinsing his hand, and all evidence of what he had just done, down the drain, Olle comes out of the bathroom, towel around his waist, “Yeah Cas?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Sam and Dean are awake, dressed, and Dean would like some breakfast.” The angel shrugs, “They sent me to get you. I'm sorry I didn't knock,” he says a little ashamed, “next time.” 

Olle interrupts him, “Don't worry about it. I'll just be a few minutes; let me throw on some clothes.” The angel nods before disappearing. Olle realizes, while he is pulling on the same jeans he took off earlier this morning, he has absolutely nothing to wear to a club or a bar and groans because he is not exactly easy to shop for given his exaggerated height; he has a 36 inch waist and a 40 inch inseam, big and tall is too big and, usually, not tall enough for him. “Fuck,” he swears and pulls out his phone while he arms himself. 

“Hey,” Beth answers happily. “How's it going?”

“I got killed by a dragon and Dean wants me to go to a club with him later, be his wing man,” Olle says throwing the phone on the bed while he wrestles with his shoulder holster, only to find Dean has adjusted the straps and he cannot get it on. 

“Yeah,” she says, “Luce told me about the dragons. Sorry. The club, though, have you not told him you're queer like a rainbow colored eleven dollar bill with Harvey Milk's face on it?”

Olle laughs, finally getting his shoulder holster on, “They know I'm gay; Sam does anyway. I said I wanted to fuck Alex Skarsgard once and Dean gave me a dirty look yesterday for leering at Sam in just his underwear; they know.” 

“Okay,” she says tone all hands in the air, backing up slowly. “What do you want?” She knows him too well. 

Olle sighs, “I need clothes for said 'wing man' activities. All my decent clothes are still there with you. I got a Fed suit, jogging and yoga clothes, and the rest is all 'I can dig slash rob a grave in this and it won't even be ruined.' Can you get Luce to bring me just a couple things to wear, please?”

“Sure,” she says. “You wanna tell Gabe what you're about to go do?”

“Listen big sister,” Olle says seriously, glaring at the phone in the middle of his unmade bed, “if you're going to lecture me about trying to get past what I want, what he wants, but I, we, just can't have,” he sighs and drops on the bed, mostly, he tells himself, to put on his boots. “I can't just sit and wait for something I'm never going to have. We tried that; Julia tried that. If I have to fuck a fleet to get past the fact that I want to crawl inside him and wiggle around, then stay there forever, well, I'll just have to fuck a fleet.”

“I love you,” is all she says. 

Olle smiles, sliding his boot knife home, “I love you too. Send me some clothes.” 

“Aye, aye Captain!” she says with as much mirth as she can muster.


	29. Chapter 29

Olle gets up, dressed, and pulls the pie from the refrigerator before he heads out and down the sidewalk to Sam and Dean's room. Before he knocks, he psyches himself up a little for the argument he feels he needs to have with Dean. 

Sam opens the door when he knocks and, seeing the pie, says, “Now, really? Okay, just, come in I guess.”

“Dean,” Olle says sternly, sitting the pie down, “I want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, Olle,” Dean says standing and coming over to look Olle in the eye, “first, let me apologize. About yesterday, man, and before we left the Bunker. I'm sorry. I blatantly ignored you, your advice, your experience, and your repeated offers of help. I nearly got Cas and Sam killed, I nearly got killed, and I did,” his voice gets thick there, “I did get you killed. I'm sorry.” Dean holds his hand out to the man, “I hope you can forgive me.”

Olle stares at Dean's outstretched hand for a few seconds before he breaks, “Fuck you Winchester! I came in here all ready to lay into you and you go and apologize!” He takes Dean's hand, “Thanks a lot Dean.” He gestures to the pie on the table, still hidden in a bag, “I bought you pie and everything; to make you feel better after I was done.”

“You bought me pie?” Dean asks, letting go of Olle's hand and moving around him toward the table; the call of pie too strong to ignore. 

Olle chuckles, “Yeah, Lemon Meringue. But,” his tone gets heavy again, “I'm still pissed at you for what happened to my truck! I'm not Daryl fucking Dixon Winchester, what am I supposed to do?”

Dean turns around at that and Sam snatches the pie off the table, saying, “I'll just put this in the fridge Dean, so it doesn't get hot while we go get something to eat.”

“I'm really, really sorry about that,” he says, actually contrite. “When Baby gets hurt,” he shakes his head. “If something like that ever happened to her, and I couldn't fix her,” he just shakes his head again. “Do you want the blue Challenger?” he asks suddenly, head tilting up to look Olle in the eye. 

Olle laughs, clapping Dean on the back, “I'm almost seven feet tall, I barely fit in Baby. Thanks for the offer, but I'll figure something out. I'll go get my Jag or something.”

“You've got a Jag?” Dean asks as they all pile out of the room and head for the Impala. 

Olle laughs, “Great for a doctor, but not good for hunting. Sticks out almost as bad as Baby does.” Olle rubs the roof of the Impala affectionately before folding himself into the back seat. 

The rest of the morning is pleasant, easy conversation and decent food. Sam even manages to get Dean to agree to see the sights with him for the rest of the day. After dinner at a nice Indian restaurant, they make their way back to the motel. Dean is determined to go out and, though Olle already agreed to go, he wants Sam and Cas to come as well. 

“I'm just going to go get ready,” Olle says when he unfold from the Impala. “Dean, come get me when you guys are ready to leave.”

“You're not going to help try to convince these two to come with us?” Dean asks. 

Olle smiles, walking backwards toward his room, “Tell you what Dean,” he laughs, “I'll talk to Sam, you talk to Cas.”

“Deal,” he says immediately. “Go ahead Sammy, go be convinced.”

Sam laughs but follows Olle into his room and leans against the door once it is closed, “I'm not going to spend all night in some skeevy bar so you can avoid Dean's cast offs.”

Olle laughs at that while he looks through the bag of clothes Lucifer left on his bed. “Dean's cast offs, huh? And what makes you think I'm going to spend all night in a skeevy bar?” Olle pulls out his phone then and uses Google to find exactly what he is looking for, “Here,” he shows the website to Sam. “Rosewood. Nice place, upscale, connects right to one of the hottest gay clubs in Philly. I can get laid, Dean can get laid, you can watch all night while my cast offs try to make time with that sinful mouth of his.” 

Sam laughs outright at that, taking the phone from Olle. “You really like Dean's mouth that much?” is the shocked, ridiculous question Sam asks and he is mortified by it, but it is already out there so he cannot take it back. 

Olle laughs, “I'm pretty sure anyone of the right orientation, who's looked at your brother's mouth since he was probably fourteen, has thought about that one thing. Yeah, I like your brother's mouth. Think he'd break my face if I told him? I'm handsy when I drink and I have no verbal filter.”

Olle is being totally serious, but also trying to get a smile out of Sam, but the hunter only blushes more furiously and stammers, “He might shoot you,” with a small chuckle. 

Olle laughs too and, for no reason he can think of except it is true, says, “I should stay away from you too, though. You are all kinds of beautiful all the time. Remember Sam, dimples like those,” he touches one with his index finger while Sam continues to blush, “should be a crime.”

In an attempt to break the strange tension that has risen up between them, Sam laughs and says, “I'll bet you a hundred bucks Dean freaks out the first time a guy hits on him and wants to leave.”

Olle laughs, clapping the kid on the back, “You got a deal. But one of us has to shoot video of the confused reactions Cas is, no doubt, going to have, no matter who hits on him!” Sam laughs and Olle feels the tension break, “Now, get going so I can shower.”


	30. Chapter 30

By nine, the four of them are walking through the door at Rosewood and getting a good look around. Cas has, after much convincing by the three men, lost his trench coat, suit coat, and his tie but he still looks very uncomfortable and out of place. The other three are all wearing jeans and casual shoes, Dean is wearing a forest green t-shirt with a cream colored Henley, Sam is sporting his ever present plaid in cream and different colors of blue with a navy t-shirt, and Olle is wearing a bright pink dress shirt with a soft, heather gray, v-neck sweater; the sleeves of both pulled up to the elbow.

All four make straight for the bar and Dean gets them a round of whiskey while Olle peruses the specialty cocktails. “Really?” Dean asks when Olle downs his whiskey and orders a $13 Old Fashioned. 

The big man smiles and says, “I'll start a tab.” That seems to shut Dean up and he takes his drink with him as he heads toward a young woman, about Sam's age, sitting alone at the other end of the bar. “Can I get into Woody's from here?” Olle asks the bartender. The guy hands him his drink and points, offering quick directions and giving him a slow once over. Olle tries the drink and, with a smile, hands the bartender one of his actual credit cards, “The four of us,” he gestures at Sam and Cas then Dean, where he is talking to the girl at the end of the bar, “are going to be on one tab. If it hits $5,000, cut us off; please.”

“Okay big spender,” the bartender says with a smile, taking his card.

“What's the credit limit on that car?” Sam asks. 

“Fifteen thousand,” Olle says leaning back on the bar and taking in their surroundings. “Plus, it's got my actual name on it, so I'll probably pay it off at some point.” Olle is going to love pointing out, later, that the bartender put them in the computer as: Pink Collared Giant, Hot Tall Guy, Blue Eyes, and Henley. 

“I'm not use to these places, man,” Sam says with a sigh. “The last time I picked up anyone in a nice bar, I was in college. When did I get old?” he asks finishing his whiskey. 

Olle laughs, “Try an Old Fashioned, it's actually pretty damn good,” he says draining his glass. Sam turns to the bartender to order them both another drink and Olle goes on, “You didn't get old, not exactly. You're out of practice with people is all. When was the last time you had a conversation with a real person? Not a hunter or a cop or a witness or a victim?”

Sam turns back around with their new drinks and shrugs, “I can see your point. It has been a very, very long time; unless you count talking to you,” the hunter says bumping his shoulder into Olle's. 

Olle laughs and says, “Yeah, well, I don't. Hey Cas,” he says loud enough for it to be a change of subject, “What do you think? Want another?” he asks pointing at the angel's empty glass. 

“It is interesting,” the angel says looking around like he is observing test subjects. “I do not think I will have another right now. It has little effect on me, unless I imbibe copious amounts, and, as I do not intend on attempting to engage in sex with anyone tonight, I feel it would be a waste of money on your part as you already said you would be forced to pay off this credit card one day.”

Sam and Olle both laugh and that, but Sam says, “You know you can do whatever you want Cas, right? We brought you out to have a good time and if you want to try to pick someone up, that's fine.”

“Thank you Sam,” the angel says sincerely. “I understand and I appreciate your concern, but observation of mating habits, now that I am more familiar with human behavior, is very interesting.”

“Okay Cas, whatever you want,” Sam says turning up his drink.

Olle chuckles but he notices Dean give him a look, “Excuse me gentlemen, my duties as wing man have been requested.” Emptying his drink, he looks at Sam and says, “Get me another, will ya?” before he heads down the bar to where Dean is waiting. 

Sliding into the seat beside Dean, so the girl will not feel trapped, he says, “Hey Dean,” everyone agreeing to use their actual first name. 

“Olle,” Dean says. “This is Lilly. She's a nurse and we were just talking about her time spent working with Doctor's Without Boarders. I told her you spent some time doing that. Funny, huh?”

Somehow, recognition dawns in Lilly's gray eyes as she looks at him and, before he can speak, she blurts out, “Oh my god! You're Dr. Wallander! I was part of the relief team that came after you were extracted from that apartment building earlier this year! That is so crazy,” she says warming up to the big man, “I just got back, like, last week!”

“Wow,” Olle says shocked to meet someone, here of all places, who actually knows him. “That is so interesting.” The bartender sits his drink in front of him then, giving Dean the opportunity to order himself, and Lilly, another round. “Well Dean,” Olle says taking his drink, “I just came to let you know, Sam and I are going to go check out Woody's for a while.”

“Oh,” Lilly says, “you're not here together?”

“No, no,” Olle says quickly, shaking his head. “Sammy is Dean's brother. They're just trying to spend some time together, while Dean is on leave, before we head back to Kansas City next week.” Olle lies too well, he thinks, but Dean is masterful at keeping up. 

“Oh,” Lilly says with a smile, instantly warming up to Dean while Olle pulls away, not listening to whatever utter garbage is coming out of the hunter's perfect mouth.


	31. Chapter 31

Moving back down the bar, Olle looks at Sam and says, “Come into Woody's with me? I think I've hooked your brother up pretty well and there is nothing in here appealing to me except you,” a slip of the slightly inebriated tongue, “and these drinks,” he holds up his glass. 

Sam blushes, but, after a long moment of serious thought, says, “Sure, why not. Cas,” he says turning to the angel, “you wanna come with us?”

Cas shakes his head before picking up the second whiskey he just ordered, “No, thank you Sam. I'm perfectly happy here.”

“Sure thing Cas,” Olle says. He and Sam both drain their drinks and, sitting the empty glasses on the bar, turn to head toward the back of the room and the entrance to Woody's. 

Once they are leaned against the bar in the much darker club, Olle turns to Sam, “We should have stayed to watch that red head who was giving Cas eyes have the strangest conversation of her life.”

Sam laughs, “Yeah. I almost feel sorry for her.” Olle laughs handing Sam his beer. “What's this?” the hunter asks. 

“Some local brew, Golden Monkey, it's 9.5% alcohol by volume; that's all I was interested in.” Sam shrugs and both men take a drink, realizing it is pretty good beer. 

They set at the bar talking about random things for a while, the place getting more and more crowded around them, and Olle finds himself completely uninterested in anyone. When Cas wanders up to them, still seated at the bar, an hour later, they are splitting an order of nachos and each working on their third beer. After a brief, but thorough, look around, the angel says, “This is a gay bar. Did you realize this was a gay bar?”

Olle just laughs, chewing, but Sam nods, “Yeah Cas, we know. Olle's gay. Where's Dean?”

“He is still talking to the woman Olle knows from Doctor's Without Boarders,” the angel says. 

Sam looks at Olle, who shrugs, emptying his beer, “She knows of me. She apparently showed up as I was leaving, after the building collapse I told you about.” Olle turns back to the bartender and orders all three of them another beer before turning to watch the Friday night Line Dancing; he hates it, but, eh, cowboys are sexy. 

“What time is it Cas?” Sam asks, loving to do this because, somehow, the angel always knows; just knows.

“It is 10:23 Sam. Were you,” Cas turns to Olle, “going to participate in the Sexy Hoedown?” he asks reading the words off a stand up flier sitting on the bar. 

“No, Cas,” Olle laughs, “I'm not. But,” he says picking up his fresh beer and handing the angel his, “I'm in good company, and the view,” he pauses to watch a Bear, about as tall as Sam, go by in very tight jeans and a black tank top, “is very nice. Sometimes, I just like to watch,” he says with a smile, eyes still following the Bear as he and an equally attractive, though smaller, man start to dance.

Cas seems to accept this and settles in at the bar, nursing his beer. The three men talk, mostly about the music and a little about how different Olle's experiences were growing up not only a genius but in a totally different country. About an hour later, Olle sees Lucifer, though he has, for some reason heretofore unknown, concealed himself with a very powerful glamour. 

Walking up to the bar, he insinuates himself easily between Sam and Olle, to order a beer, and Olle smiles, which is not lost on Sam, as the devil turns to him with a grin. “Hi, I'm Mark,” the archangel says holding out his hand. 

“Olle,” the doctor says, voice full of amusement, as he shakes Mark's hand. 

“I was just wondering,” he gestures at the dance floor with his head, “would you like to dance with me?”

Olle has no idea what is going on, but he is very impressed by how well Lucifer is acting, so he agrees, “Sure, I'll dance with you.”

While 'Mark' drinks his beer, they get to know each other. Olle tells him he is a doctor, in town for a conference. 'Mark' talks about being in the military and working with his brothers, all of them working for their father; in publishing. When their glasses are empty, and the current song is ending, they move away from the bar. 

On the dance floor, they join hands, arms around the others back, as Tennessee Whiskey starts to play and Olle laughs, leaning in to talk to the angel, “What are you doing?”

Lucifer laughs, “Beth said she wants to talk to you. And, admittedly, this was her idea. How'm I doin'?” he asks unsure, as they dance slow, close, and easy. 

Olle smiles again, getting a kick out of this, and shifts so they are closer, “You're doing really well. Are you sure you're comfortable?” Olle knows Lucifer told Gabriel he was ace and he wants to make sure he is not making him uncomfortable. 

“I'm good,” Lucifer says letting Olle lead. “Physical intimacy doesn't bother me. I just have yet to grasp the whole 'sex' thing.”

Olle shakes his head, “Okay. I like the glamour, by the way. You look like yourself but enough not that they didn't notice anything.”

“The hair is different, the beard, glasses, and I think I'm taller,” he says. “I'm not completely sure, Beth did it.”

“So, I'm supposed to let you pick me up; is that it?” Olle asks. At Lucifer's hum of assent he says, “I can do that; you're a good dancer.”

Lucifer laughs then, head falling on Olle's shoulder, “I'm pretty sure I learned it, and most of my social skills, from Sam.”

“No wonder you're socially awkward.” The two share a grin, but Olle sighs then, a little sad, “Gorgeous and talented, figures he's straight.”

“He's not,” Lucifer says looking up to make eye contact with the immortal. 

“What?” Olle says, shocked and a little confused. 

“Brady,” Lucifer says, ashamed. “That's why Lilith and I choose him. And I got a glimpse, accidentally, during that first flash I sent him; a dog named Amelia and there was a man, but I don't know when that happened. I don't think Dean knows.”

“Fuck,” Olle says, “I've been flirting with him non-stop for weeks!” Olle hangs his head in shame as their song ends and they stay close as they walk off the dance floor. “I just miss your brother so fucking much and I think about what he would do, or say, and I make an ass outta myself!”

“Are you sure that is the only reason?” Lucifer asks seriously. “Because if it's not, you need to talk to Gabe about it.”

Olle wraps his arm around the angel's shoulder and Lucifer pulls the big man closer by the waist as they get back to the bar. Olle picks up his empty glass, trying to avoid thinking about what Lucifer just said. He turns to 'Mark' with a smile, “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Sure,” Lucifer says with a shy grin, but Olle can tell it does not reach his gray blue eyes and he knows it is because of what they were just talking about. 

Over the course of the next hour, Olle and 'Mark' keep talking about books and music and movies and, while including Sam and Cas occasionally, Olle makes sure to slowly exclude them; making his intentions perfectly clear to Sam, if not Cas. 

By last call, the four of them have gravitated back into Rosewood. Olle and Lucifer are sitting at the end of the bar, each working on their sixth Old Fashion since sitting down, still talking about books; Olle hopes Lucifer is enjoying himself because the entire conversation has been expressly steered away from anything that could give them away. Sam is across the room talking to a woman, long dark hair, brown eyes, tall, about twenty-eight, who is a law clerk. Cas is at the bar, has been for the past hour and a half, trying all their signature cocktails and letting the bartender give him anything else he concocts; a few people, men and women, have tried to pick him up, but he seems, not oblivious, uninterested; he buys them a drink, talks to them for a while and then politely excuses himself. Dean left with Lilly not long after everyone else came back in; that bet he and Sam made moot. Olle cashes out, $2,500 which he tips up to $5,000 after finding out the staff has to split tips here and with Woody's. He had no idea they drank that much, until he looks at the bill; that does include what they ordered in Woddy's, though. 

Olle goes over to Sam, touching the man on the shoulder so he looks up, “Mark and I are going to go. Dean took the Impala, do you need me to get you an Uber?”

The woman Sam is with, Vickie, answers for him, “I can get your brother home safe. Thanks!” She is polite but getting frustrated, still trying to seal the deal with Sam. 

Sam shakes his head and smiles. “I'm good, Olle, Cas is still here,” he says looking over at the angel by the bar, throwing back drink after drink he ordered just before Olle cashed out. Most of it, he sees, is whiskey. and the angel may be a little bit drunk by now, because Lucifer is looking at his brother with a silly, affectionate smile everyone thinks is directed at Olle. 

Olle goes over and takes Lucifer's hand, leading him out of the bar. In the shuffle of bodies on the street, they disappear; no one notices.


	32. Chapter 32

Appearing in the game room on the fourth floor of the house in Kansas City, Lucifer lets go of Olle's hand and does a full body shake, almost like a wet dog, so the glamour falls away and, rolling his shoulders, he looks at Olle, “Let me know when you're ready to go back.” Olle nods and Lucifer walks toward the door. 

“Hey Luce,” Olle says then. The angel turns, hand on doorknob, to look at him, “Thanks. For the dance. For talking to me about something that wasn't everything we've been dealing with.” The devil nods, a quick smile on his face, before he slips out the door. 

Olle looks over at Beth and Kevin, playing 8-ball, while Linda reads a book on the couch and Balthazar watches Olle's box set of Downton Abbey. “Where's Gabe?” he asks casually, leaning against the back of the couch and staring Beth down. 

“Training,” Kevin says, “or reading; that's all he does anymore.” The prophet sounds upset by that, almost worried.

“We need to talk babe,” Beth says laying her que on the table, she just sank the 8-ball anyway. Kevin goes over to sit between his mom and Balthazar. 

Olle nods and she follows him out of the room, downstairs to their bedroom. It has never been strange for either of them to consider this their room, but Olle notes the oddity, to outsiders, as he makes his way past her to sit on the bed. 

“What's up?” he asks. That nice buzzed feeling he got at the bar tonight is quickly fading, and he can tell by the look on her face this is serious. He flops back on the bed with a groan and says, “At least if Mark were real I'd be getting head right now. Who knew the devil was a good date?”

Beth smiles and comes to lay across the bed with him, they shift around until they are looking each other in the eye and she says, “I'm sorry about the truck. I'm so, so sorry about the dragons. Luce said you killed three of them with no help from the boys and, if it weren't for them, you wouldn't have been killed.” She reaches out and runs her fingers along his face, resting her hand there, thumb rubbing softly under his eye. “Luce said he thinks you're crushing on Sammy Winchester, is that so?”

Olle shakes his head, rolling away from her touch, “Are you trying to console me because I was stabbed, choked, and seared to death by a dragon or are you trying to get me to admit Sam is an easy, breathtaking, target for how much I miss Gabe?”

At her, “Uhuh,” Olle stands up and starts stripping his clothes off, headed for the shower. “What are you doing?” she asks getting up to follow him. 

“I'm taking a shower, in my fucking awesome heated shower that isn't a shitty motel bathroom where I barely fit hunched over under a lukewarm trickle!” Olle turns on the water and shuts the door behind him, hoping to drown out his all knowing truth.

Unfortunately, she takes her clothes off and follows him into the shower. “What's going on with you?” she asks almost desperately. She reaches out to him, her hand flat in the middle of his back while he stands with his head under the water. “This is fucking hard Olle.” she laughs a little jaggedly, “I'm not in your head anymore and I can't just help you reason this out in real time. You have to talk to me.”

Olle turns then, looking down the foot that separates them, “You weren't here when he did it, but it happened right here.” Olle reaches out and puts his hand on the heated tile wall to his left. “All she ever wanted,” he smiles, but he is crying, “Disney love magic crap.”

“It never seems to matter what we look like, does it?” Beth asks sadly, coming over to put her hand over his. “We always seems to fit together perfectly.” Olle nods, still crying and she does her best to wrap herself around him then, who is offering who comfort now, though, is a mystery because they are both crying. 

Olle picks her up, her legs lock around him on instinct, and they press into each other as close as possible; like they wish they could be one person again. After a while, as their tears subside, Olle pulls back to look at her, “Your hair is going to be a matted, tangled mess,” he laughs. 

Beth laughs too, “Put me down, then, and help me wash it.” Firmly back on the tile floor, she turns so Olle can pull the long French brain lose. 

“Will you stay with me tonight?” she asks while large hands scrub shampoo into her scalp. 

Olle pulls her into his chest and turns them into the water, “Of course.”

Later, when they are tangled, warm and comfortable, in bed, Beth says into the dark, “So, Sam Winchester?”

“I want to say Lucifer is being over protective of Gabriel; big brother-little brother complex.” Olle shifts a little, adjusting Beth in his arms, “I'm not sure, though. Whatever this is, or could be or I might want it to be, can't be anything as long as I'm lying to them. He knows enough that he needs to know it all if...” Olle trails off. 

“If,” Beth says. “You want an 'if' then.” She rubs her face into the side of his chest where she is draped across him, “Gabe nearly lost his fucking mind when he found out Cas was hurt. You're gonna tell him about this soon, before this nothing, this if, turns into anything. He barely speaks to me, doesn't look at me,” she says sadly. “Losing him,” she stops; as bad as she feels right now, she cannot imagine what Olle is going through. 

“Is leaving a hole where nothing fits but him,” Olle finishes and she hums into his chest. “I'll tell him. I don't know what I'll him, but I'll tell him.”

“Go to sleep. Philly's an hour ahead of us, Luce's gotta take you back early,” Beth says rolling over so they can both be more comfortable spooning. Olle pulls her into his chest and they go to sleep almost immediately. 

**

The next morning, Olle wakes up at six and slowly disentangles himself from Beth. She stirs finally and he leans over, dropping a kiss to her lips, “I'm gonna go.”

She sits up, kissing him slowly so he sinks into it, still half asleep. “Please be careful with this, Olle.”

“I know,” he says kissing her again, running his hand down her body between her breasts, around her hip, and down the back of her thigh to the knee; just enjoying the feel of her. “Does he even know I'm here?” When she shakes her head 'no,' he says, “I'll do it soon; I swear. I'm too hung over and too exhausted to do it now.” 

“I'm sorry you didn't get to have ridiculously hot sex with Mark,” she smiles sleepily and snuggles back down into the bed, pulling his still warm pillow into her body. 

Olle shakes his head, “I'm gonna go.” He dresses in clean clothes, grabbing what he was wearing when he got here, and prays, “Lucifer, I'm ready to go when you are.”

The angel appears at the foot of the bed and, without a word, drops him about a block from their motel, at a bus stop, with a large cup of his favorite coffee. When he gets back to his room, his clothes and another cup of coffee are waiting with three lemon donuts. “Better than a hook-up Luce,” he prays with a smile and a laugh. “Thanks.”

After Olle downed his second coffee, and all three donuts, he packs all his belonging and puts everything in the back of the moving van before he makes his way to Sam and Dean's room. Baby was not in the parking lot when he got back, and that has not changed, but he figures Cas and/or Sam should be there, so he knocks on the door. 

Cas answers and Olle can hear the shower as he comes into the room, “Hey Cas.”

“Olle,” the angel says quietly. The big man drops into a chair at the table, Cas sits across from him and says, “You look better than Sam did when he got back this morning, and Dean never looks that good returning the next day after something like this.”

Olle laughs, “You got a lotta experience with Winchesters post random hook-up, do ya?”

Cas nods the affirmative, “You also drank more than both of them combined. How are you not hung over?”

Olle shrugs, “I'm six eight, I weigh two hundred and ninety-seven pounds, nearly all of it muscle. My metabolism is ridiculously high, it has to be, so I don't really get drunk unless I set out to. My body burns through the calories too fast and, as long as I stay hydrated, I don't get hung over.”

“Good for you,” Sam says, voice deep and rough and almost pained. Olle looks over and he is standing in the bathroom doorway in nothing but a towel; the room is dark, the only light around the curtains, but it is still a nice view. “The first hour I spent in Hell wasn't this bad,” the hunter quips going over to his bed and starting to get dressed. 

Cas and Olle both smile, but it is Olle who speaks, “Good to know you've kept your sense of humor. Did you and Vickie have a nice time after Mark and I left?” He is not sure why he asked, not sure he wants to know, but it is out there now, so.

Sam sits on the end of the bed, shirtless with his jeans still undone, to put his socks and shoes on. “I didn't go home with Vickie,” he says casually. 

“He went home with the bartender who was serving Cas too much whiskey,” Lucifer says appearing by the window. “I came back, after I dropped you off, to make sure they were okay; Cas was a little drunk and I didn't want to worry.”

Olle nods; something he thinks is sick, like hope or want, starting to bloom in his stomach. “She was probably pissed,” is all the doctor says. 

Sam shrugs, “She was nice about it. I got her a cab and I walked around for a while. It was a good night.” Sam's phone goes off then, a text from Dean, telling him he will be back in a half hour and they can go get breakfast. 

After breakfast, Olle sits across from Dean at their table, with Sam and Olle together a booth is impossible, and tells the brothers he is going to head back toward the Bunker today. Dean wipes his mouth and says, “We were going to stay a few more days, Olle. Are you sure you don't want to stay?”

Olle shakes his head as the waitress drops apple pie a la mode in front of him and Dean, “I've got to stop in Kansas City, cancel the insurance on my truck, turn in the tags.” He laughs, “I'd like to sleep in a bed I don't hang off the bottom of and stand at my full height to shower.”

Dean grins and Sam nods knowingly. “I'll ride back with you,” Cas says suddenly, “If that is acceptable?”

“Sure,” Olle says. “As soon as you're ready.”


	33. Chapter 33

Cas had a plan when he said he would ride back to the Bunker with Olle. He needs to talk to the giant of a man without Sam and Dean around. He knows Olle is not being completely honest with them about who he is, what he knows, and what he is capable of; he just has no idea why he knows this or how to talk to him about it. Cas was hoping, watching the big man drive, that his social awkwardness would come in handy; Olle never seemed to expect him to be anything but blunt so, he decided, he would just come right out and ask about everything he suspected and wait for an answer. 

Not wanting to distract Olle while he is driving, Cas waits for them to stop that evening for dinner. Harvest Pizzeria in the German Village section of Columbus, Ohio is, Cas thinks as they sit down, much more upscale than he is use to. Mostly, Sam and Dean find a drive thru or a truckstop restaurant when moving from one place to another and, even when they are working a case, they do not usually go out of their way to find somewhere to eat. It is late, after nine o'clock, when they stop and the place is not crowded, especially for a Saturday night, so Cas thinks it will be easy to talk to Olle here, while he is comfortable, while he enjoys his meal. 

“What are you, really?” Cas ask the man as the waitress walks away to put in the his drink order. Olle just stares at him for a minute, not saying anything, so Cas continues, “You killed three dragons, you knew there were dragons. If Dean hadn't run in when he did, you would have, could have, killed them all, by yourself. You used what I can only assume, after days of research, was high magick, you then altered, to reverse a curse that was taken from a book of forgotten magick in Heaven. You lived through that. You overpowered an angel while they, I, was using you as a vessel. You are cursed, but you cannot be only what you say you are.”

“Fuck!” Olle swears quietly, taking his beer from the waitress. “Can I get another one of these,” he asks her, “and a double Bourbon; Weller if you've got it?” The young woman nods and moves away. Olle takes his time draining his first bottle and waits for the waitress to return with his next round. He thinks, slowly, about what Cas said. The angel knows something is off, but he gets the feeling Cas has no idea what or even why he feels that way. He can handle this without blowing it all up right now, he can, he hopes. He takes a long sip of Bourbon and, after the waitress walks away, he finally decides to speak, “You need to tell me what you want to know because there are some things I can, will, tell you and others, for now, I'd let you tell the boys I'm not what I say I am and have me ostricised, or worse, before I admit anything.”

Cas is taken aback by Olle not trying to evade or deny. However, Cas is cautious because this freely admitted secrecy makes him nervous. Olle's willingness to admit there are things he is not going tell, things he would risk punishment to keep secret, makes Cas trust him more than if he had come across as an open book, though, and he feels he can at least listen to what the man has to say. “For starters: Who are you, really?” the angel wants to know. 

“I have had many names, but I wasn't lying when I told you about Mikhail. There was an accident, shortly before he, I, was born, found. When I was killed, when my body was destroyed, Mikhail was all I knew until, like I told you all, I was killed in combat. Magick is a strange thing and memory even stranger, I really didn't know who, what, I was. When I came to myself again, I came into the beginnings of the end of the apocalypse and there was a lot of work to do.” Olle stops there and takes a pull on his bottle. “I found Gabe, as quickly as I could, and he had already run into the boys at Crawford Hall. I did a lot of things to help, but I stayed as far away from all of you as I could manage. I found Cain and tried to get him to kill Lilith, but the Blade was gone. I helped Bobby steer you all toward the horseman rings. I pushed Gabe to help, pushed so hard I got him killed!” Olle stops then, voice breaking. “After, the Leviathan,” Olle leans forward then, angry, “you did that! Do you know how fucking hard it was to keep those bastards away from their tablet as long as I did?”

Cas is shocked! The look on his face cannot convey all the emotion he is feeling. Olle is pouring out secrets Cas had no idea, no idea this was what the man would say. “How?” is all he can think to ask. 

“As long as the tablet, any tablet, wasn't cracked open, the prophet wouldn't be revealed. All I had to do was keep moving with that one tablet, they didn't want to raise the prophet so, the other tablets they found, they simply left alone.” Olle sits back, “I had no idea if Sam and Dean were ready, but Frank was dead and he was my contact. I just kept running, but they caught up with me eventually.”

“What happened?” Cas wants to know. 

“Death by Leviathan is a one way ticket, for me, to Purgatory,” Olle says truthfully. “Fucking hate that place, but I'm guessing I got out right about the time you and Dean got there.”

“You were the one who told Benny how to get out!” Cas says even more shocked than he was a few minutes ago. 

Olle nods, tipping up his Bourbon, “I kept him in blood when he got back, but he wouldn't let me to do anything else for him. He knew I didn't want to hunt, didn't want to know Sam and Dean. I wish,” Olle shakes his head then and stops for a minute while the waitress sits down Olle's meatballs and Ohio Double Bacon pizza. “I wish,” he starts again pulling a slice onto his plate and stabbing a meatball with his fork, “that I'd done more for him, for the boys, once I felt Henry and Abadon arrive. I wish I'd stopped Dean from taking the Mark. If I'd just,” he stops to eat and is quiet for a long while. 

“If you'd just what?” Cas has to ask once he is working on his third beer; pizza over half gone and meatballs finished. 

“If I'd just taken it when he told me he lost the Blade.” Olle laughs, turning up his drink, “If I'd been twenty minutes faster and stopped Gabriel from going back into that ridiculous hotel.”

“Cain offered you the Mark?” Cas asks skeptically. He is shocked by everything Olle is telling him, and he was impressed with Olle's skill with a blade, but he cannot imagine the big man is capable of the things necessary to make him worthy of the Mark of Cain. Then again, he thinks to himself, Dean had more than earned the Mark and, based on observation, Olle could best Dean easily. 

Olle laughs at Cas' skepticism. Pulling another slice of pizza onto his plate, he says, “He told me that if I wanted to kill Lilith I would have to do it myself. I just couldn't find the Blade and he wouldn't tell me where he put it.” Olle stops then to eat, but goes on after he swallows the last bite, “I was going to either kill her or kill Lucifer when he rose and took possession of Sam. Why did Ruby think she was in that room with Sam and Lucifer? She was fodder, supposed to juice him back up so he wouldn't explode when Luci got his hooks into him.” 

“Who the fuck are you?” Cas blurts out suddenly. 

Olle laughs, “I'm just a cursed soul Cas, I told you that.” He finished the last of his second Bourbon and gets another beer while Cas sits, staring at him or through him; he is not sure which. He knows he probably should not have kept talking, but he is so tired of waiting and he is so tired of letting Amara get away and he just wants this to be over. He wants them all together so they can get this done.

“So you're telling me everything you've told us is the truth?” the angel wants to know. 

Olle shrugs, pulling the last of the pizza over onto his plate, “I've lied by omission, maybe, and I've let you all assume your own version of the timeline and order of events, but I've tried to be honest. If, when I finally get around to telling you all everything, you find out I lied about anything, well, then you're more likely not to trust me or believe me when I need you to,” he says talking with his mouth full and his hand obstructing the view. 

“You don't intend to keep faking it, then?” Cas asks shocked. 

Olle shakes his head, swallowing, “I don't. I want to, will, tell all three of you everything; eventually. I'm not keeping secrets for my own amusement. There are things I cannot tell you yet, for your safety, for my safety, for the safety of others involved; who I won't tell you about until I, and, more importantly, they are ready.”


	34. Chapter 34

“I can't lie to Sam and Dean,” Cas says. 

“I'm not asking you to lie, Cas,” Olle says seriously. “I'm asking you to not volunteer information. I'm asking you to tell them, if they ask you directly, that they need to talk to me. Then, come get me and I'll figure out what I can tell them.”

“That sounds like lying,” Cas says. “That sounds like doing exactly what we always do and it always,” Cas says with a tone that lets Olle know he thinks this is a bad idea, “always, blows up in our faces.”

“Well then,” Olle says finishing the last of his food and draining his beer, “at least it is something we're use to.” He waits for the waitress to come over and clear the table before ordering dessert and coffee. 

Once she goes to put his order in, Cas says, “How old are you? Really. How long, really, did you know Gabriel?”

Olle takes a deep breath and lies, outright, for the first time when talking about himself, “I don't know.” Then he tells the truth, “The first real thing I remember about being me is Gabriel. Whiskey colored eyes and laughter,” he smiles bittersweetly at the memory. “Before that, everything was just pain and want. He helped me become myself. I helped him, I hope, learn to cope without all the things he had before. Remembering things from before the curse, I didn't do that for a long, long time.”

“You talk about him quite a lot,” Cas says. He feels, he wants to say jealous, but that confuses him because he has no idea why he would be jealous of Olle knowing Gabriel. “How many years can you remember? Since Gabriel found you, I mean.”

Olle lies again, sort of, “He was Loki, standing over me in the snow. Looking down at me like he had never seen anything as odd as me. That, to me at the time, made no sense, he was so small,” Olle laughs at the memory he is giving away. After he came back from Hell, after he and Gabriel fell apart again, after Azazal started hunting him again, Gabriel stumbled upon him by accident. “He was really just pissed he was having to deal with a human who, somehow, had enough power to call to him and make him hear it. 

“Why did you call to Loki?” Cas wants to know. 

“I woke up naked, buried in the snow. I had no idea what was going on so.”

Cas cuts him off with an amused smile, “You called out to a Trickster?” Olle nods and he and Cas share a smile. “He must have hated you at first,” Cas says laughing. 

Olle smiles, tucking into his warm apple pie a la mode. “He was intrigued by the curse,” Olle says truthful of why Gabriel took any interest in him at all in the beginning. “When we, he, realized what was wrong with me, what I was essentially capable of, it became important to him to teach me to be a warrior. To teach me how not to become a pawn or a weapon. He was determined to teach me as much as I could learn and, it turns out, I could learn everything he was willing to teach.”

“So he did impart knowledge, just like Metatron,” Cas says. 

Olle shakes his head, “No Cas, he gave me Elvish, because I needed it, and he gave me Enochian, because I needed it; the rest I had to learn the hard way. Believe me,” Olle says scooping up melted ice cream and broken crust, “I bled for most of it, literally. Do you know what it is like to learn to be a warrior from one of Creation's oldest warriors, when you can't be killed?”

Cas hates to imagine, just from the look on Olle's face. “We were created to be warriors, there wasn't exactly a learning curve.” 

Olle smiles at that. “There is not a lot else I can tell you, Cas.” Olle turns serious, “I can tell you there is a lot more you need to know. I can tell you I will, eventually, tell you, and Sam and Dean, all of it. Any more questions? So far we've only covered how old I am and random stories about your brother.”

“I feel like you haven't told me anything you haven't already hinted at anyway,” Cas says. “What can you tell me about the Darkness, about Amara, that we don't know? What can you tell me about what you don't want to tell me?”

Olle sends his empty dessert plate away but gets more coffee and orders an espresso, “About Amara, Gabriel told me things, things I'm glad I can't forget because they seemed so ridiculous, too ridiculous to remember. I'm not sure I should tell you, though. They are of no benefit.”

“I'd like to know,” Cas says.

Olle sighs, thinking through his words carefully before he tells Cas anything. “Metatron is right, she is God's sister. I can't really wrap my head around it all, except to say it is about light and dark. Every attempt, apparently, that your Father made to create, she would pick it apart and destroy it. She is unbeing, not death, not a return to the source. Pure destruction, like a black hole. Michael, Lucifer, and Gabriel were created first, together. The Morningstar took the Mark and cast Amara away, where she couldn't destroy anything again. The Mark, much as it had Dean, drove Lucifer mad. Her anger, her destruction, her desire to take from her brother all bled into Lucifer, apparently, and sowed the seeds necessary to incite his rebellion.” Olle takes this opportunity to sew a little seed of his own, “I wonder,” he says pensively, “if the removal of the Mark could have, after all this time, given him back any of his sanity; the way it did for Dean?”

Cas is quiet for a long time, while Olle dumps his espresso in his coffee and finishes it, even while he pays the check. As they stand to go, though, he finds his voice again, “After all this time, after the apocalypse, could he be brought back to himself? I've done things nearly as bad, I suffered through Sam's torment inside the Cage, and it was enough to end me. If Dean and Sam hadn't been there for me,” he shakes his head as Olle hands him the keys. 

“You think he'd be insane, you think he'd kill himself,” Olle says sliding into the passenger's seat. 

“I think, trapped in the Cage with Michael, if they haven't managed to kill each other and Lucifer is suddenly returned to sanity, Michael will kill him anyway because he feels it is his destiny,” Cas says starting to pull out onto the main road, headed toward the highway. “And Lucifer won't try to stop him if he thinks he deserves it.”

“When he took me,” Olle says quietly, “after Gabriel, he was tormented with grief. He would rail at me, cut into me, cry, tell me stories about his brother. He thought Gabriel stopped loving him, and that is why he killed him. He thought Gabriel loved me, and loved me more than him,” Olle laughs at that, given their current situation and Lucifer's hope they will both give in to their love for one another. “He made me watch while he killed all those pagan entities who, throughout mythology, have been linked to Loki. Sometimes he would torture them, sometimes he would let them torture me in a battle for their life. He always killed them anyway, no matter what I let them do to me. I was only glad, at the time, that he hadn't found Kali.” Olle shakes his head then, not wanting to admit this out loud to anyone, ever.

“Why?” Cas asks, oblivious to Olle's withdrawal into himself and the far corner of the cab. 

Olle sighs, thinks he might as well get it over with, “When Gabriel died, I hoped Kali still had his blood. I prayed that it would be enough to keep him alive.”

“I'm sorry,” the angel says. 

Olle shrugs into the darkness around them, “I'm gonna get some sleep Cas. If you don't mind?”

“Go ahead,” he says, figuring all this talking, and thinking, about everything had to be exhausting. “Fine, Olle. Do you need me to help you with that?” he asks seriously. 

Olle shakes his head, “Just let it lie. My body doesn't process Grace like a regular person's; it clings and I feel awful because of it.”

“What do you mean?” Cas wants to know.

“Gabriel always said that when an angel heals a person, the Grace only fixes the body and the mind. The soul, however, recharges the Grace of the angel. Whatever Grace used to heal is replenished by the soul.” Cas nods so Olles goes on, “All the power of a human soul is amazing, but I don't have a whole soul. It is draining on me to have those little bits of Grace try to fix me and get a boost from my soul.” 

“That is why you were not your best on Thursday,” Cas says suddenly, “I had been putting you to sleep and waking you up and what about when you removed my curse?” 

Olle nods, “Yep.”

“Get some rest Olle,” Cas says. 

Olle leans into his window, arms crossed, and sleeps peacefully for the next eight hours. When they stop for gas, and so Olle can take over driving, he goes inside for coffee and, while Cas is at the pump, calls Beth. 

“Hey handsome,” she says smiling into the phone. “What's up?”

“Yeah, fuck,” Olle swears while he gets himself coffee, spilling it on his hand.

“What's wrong,” her tone changes to concern.

Olle sighs, wiping his hand, “Our life was just so much easier when we were one person. Cas confronted me last night and, instead of fight or deny, I admitted.” Olle grabs some water for the cooler and drops everything at the counter so he can go grab snacks for breakfast. 

“What'd you tell him?” she wants to know, curious about how he handled the situation.

“Nothing really, except that I'm older than I said I was and there are things I am not, and won't, tell for the time being,” he answers grabbing a bag of Family Sized Doritos and two Share size bags of peanut M&Ms so he's a stress eater, he can handle the calories. 

As he is going back to cooler for Dr. Pepper, Beth says, “What did Sam and Dean have to say about it?”

“I'm in Columbia, a couple hours from home, we're alone. I wanted to stop by the house, put some things away and drop some things off, but Cas wanted to come with me. I have to cancel the insurance on the truck and turn in the tag.” 

Olle listens to his counter part while he pays, “Bring him to the house. I can cobble together something between now and then that is better than Luce's glamour and I'll take them to the movies or something. The new Justice League is out and Luce, Baz, and Kevin have just finished watching the others. Which, by the way, he may have put a dent our Prague account buying comics.” She says the last part hesitantly, waiting for an explosion. 

Olle just laughs, grabbing his bag of snacks and coffee, “Explain to him Marvel is better and show him the movies.” Beth laughs. “I gotta go,” Olle says. “We'll be there soon. Bye.”


	35. Chapter 35

When Olle pulls the moving van, with everything from his wrecked, melted truck, into his garage several hours later, his Jag is parked in the corner and everything is locked up like Olle has been away. Coming into the kitchen, he can feel the change his female self as affected, but, like Lucifer's glamour, Cas does not seem to notice. Offering Cas the tour, Olle walks him through every room on this floor and it looks like, whatever Beth did, it wasn't to the ground floor. Then again, all the interesting things he had were on the second floor, in his private library. He is pretty sure the Men of Letters has copies of everything housed in his general library, so it is not such a bad thing if Cas looks through it. His next stop is downstairs, the armory and training area. Cas is helping him carry the tool box from his truck and it is very cumbersome, but, with the help of Cas' angelic strength, not impossible. Olle gives him a quick walk through there as well and, again, nothing is changed. 

Once they get all the boxes out of the moving van, Olle walks Cas through the rest of the house. All evidence anyone is living here is gone, and the majority of the glamour's strength is used to make the second floor library and office appear much, much different than they are. Lucifer's room, though, looks exactly like it always does; his books shelved meticulously, TV and movie collection neatly organized, desk empty, and couch and coffee table well worn. The library, though, and his private office, are totally gone; replaced by another master suite and a huge laundry room. The game room on the fourth floor now seems to take up almost twice its actual size, cleverly hiding the room of cursed objects with that and a seemingly empty storage room.

“The journals Sam said you had, from your family, did you write them?” Cas asks when they are back downstairs in the armory, unpacking everything they just brought inside. 

Olle nods, “It is a family collection, but I have added to it. Others have helped,” he sneaks in, feeling almost honest, because Gabriel helped him write a few things.

They spend a couple hours organizing the armory, and the apothecary dining room, before Olle calls his insurance company and the DMV. He cancels his insurance and gets the information needed to mail his tags back in before he goes downstairs and starts gathering everything he intends to take back to the Bunker with him. Cas helps and, by six, they are ready to leave. Olle dismissed Cas' idea to stay the night there by pointing out the utter lack of food and coffee. As he is locking the door, Cas waiting in the van, Olle sends Beth an 'all clear' text, and he takes Cas to Nara so the angel can watch him eat sushi. 

Back at the Bunker by just after midnight, Olle leaves everything in the van and is halfway to his room for a shower when he remembers Metatron. Olle is standing, then, outside the scribe's room when Cas stops beside him, “I had almost forgotten he was here.” 

Olle nods, “I was halfway to my room for a shower when I remembered.” He scratches his head, “Might as well get it over with,” he says going over to open to window in the door. “Son of a bitch!” he curses, jerking the door open when he sees the pudgy man laying in the floor, blood everywhere. He had used a sharp edge on his bed. Luckily, Olle realizes when he gets to him and he is still alive, it had taken him a few days to break the bed and sharpen the edge on the concrete floor. 

“Cas,” Olle calls picking up the small man and starting to run through the Bunker toward the infirmary, “I need IV set ups and ice, lots of ice!” 

When Olle gets the man laid out on one of the stainless steel tables, Cas is there with and IV set up and he asks, “What can I do?”

Olle lifts both of the man's arms above his head and starts to cut his shirt off, “Get pillows and blankets to lift his feet.” Olle shakes his head thinking of the amount of blood on the floor in his room, he knows what he has to do, knows, but a part of him grates at the thought. “Cas,” he says stopping what he is doing and reaching out to the angel, “don't, please, please, don't freak out.” Olle takes a deep breath and prays, aloud, “Gabe, man, I need you. I need you now! Please.”

In an instant, the archangel is there, standing across the gurney from Olle while Cas looks on, in shock, from the foot of the bed; he dropped the blankets he was holding. Gabriel looks down at Metatron and says, “I'm not fixing that!”

“Gabriel!” Olle says almost desperately, the look in his eyes as he stares at the archangel makes him sigh and, with a snap, Metatron is perfectly fine, asleep on the bed between them. 

“There,” he quips, “I'm done.” He is gone with a thought, never even looking at Cas; the seraph is still speechless where he stands. 

“Cas, man,” Olle says turning to him, “I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Are you okay?”

“Where was he today?” Cas asks quietly. “You're hiding him. How long has he been back? Where was he today when we were at your house?” The angel moves to sit on an empty bed on the far side of the room. 

“He was at the movies with Linda and Kevin Tran and Balthazar and Lucifer,” Olle says quietly, guiltily, as he sits down on a bed directly across from Cas. “Gabe and Baz both just showed up the day the Darkness was released. Gabe came to find me, I was cleaning Dean out of the mess you both left in Shreveport. He needed a favor, and the three of us went into Hell to get Lucifer out of the Cage. We intended on either freeing him or killing him; he was very, very broken, but no longer insane. He has been here with me, with us, since you were injured in Wichata.” Cas flinches at that but Olle goes on, “Gabriel and I,” Olle shakes his head, “Lucifer was the logical choice to simply hang around, so your Grace could recharge more quickly. His being with me, bringing us all back to the Bunker, healing you as much as the curse would allow, is the only thing that kept you alive. He is not, by any stretch of the imagination, ready to fight; I wouldn't trust him to kill a spider right now without having a panic attack.”

“Michael,” Cas asks quietly, “what about Michael?”

Olle shakes his head, he is crying silent tears he notices then, “There are things he, Michael, had Naomi take from you, from every angel in Creation except Lucifer and Gabriel. Michael was not, never, a hero or a savior or a good son. Lucifer killed his brother when the Darkness shuddered through Creation and broke open the Cage; it was the first act of sanity he committed since he took the Mark.” Cas is shaking his head back and forth like he does not want to hear, does not want to believe. “I'll tell you all of it Cas. I'll get your brothers back here and I'll tell you all of it. I'll get Gabe or Luce to make you remember. When you know, when it is all laid out in front of you, you can decide if Sam and Dean are ready to know. If you tell me to tell them right now, I'll get Gabriel to bring them back here immediately and I'll tell them.”


	36. Chapter 36

Cas sits quietly for a long time, Olle is barely breathing waiting for him to respond. Finally, he says, “Gabriel, brother, please. I need to talk to you.”

The archangel shows up at the foot of Cas' bed, he looks frightened, hesitant, as he says, “Castiel.”

“Tell me everything,” Cas says turning violent eyes on his brother. 

Olle sighs and asks, “How long will he,” nodding at Metatron, “sleep?”

“Until we're done,” Gabriel says. Olle nods and, with a snap of Gabriel's fingers, they are back in the kitchen at Olle's. “Lucifer, Balthazar,” Gabriel says and the two angels appear. “We have to tell him.”

“Where is Beth?” Olle asks falling into a chair at the island. 

“She and Linda are training,” Balthazar says. “Cas,” the angel says stiffly to the brother who murdered him. 

“Balthazar,” Cas says taking a step toward him, but the other angel backs up on instinct. Cas stops, looks down, ashamed and contrite, “There is no excuse, no way to explain, nothing I can do or say except to tell you how much I regret what I did.”

“That's not enough, Cas,” Balthazar says keeping his distance. “Not by a long shot. You murdered me in pursuit of power, with no external influences. You aligned yourself with the King of Hell and stabbed your brother in the back!” This conversation, this anger, is the most energy Balthazar has put into anything since he returned. 

Cas stops advancing, stops moving, relaxes back against the island and looks his brother in the eye, “You're right. I let my pursuit of power, my pride, avarice, and hubris corrupt me. I betrayed and destroyed you, Sam, Dean, Bobby, thousands of angels. I murdered you. I drove Sam mad by releasing upon him all his unadulterated memories of his time in the Cage. I killed Raphael. I attempted to crown myself the new God, decimating the ranks of Heaven before releasing the Leviathan upon Humanity. Thousands were killed, Bobby,” here his voice breaks. “Even my madness, once I healed Sam, and the time spent in Purgatory, cannot be considered punishment enough for my sins. I was a victim of pride once again when Metatron used me, my Grace, to cast the angels from Heaven.” Cas looks around at all of them, eyes coming to rest, oddly, on Lucifer, “You, Lucifer, were a victim of the Mark. What's my excuse?” he asks sadly. 

Gabriel walks over to him, crying, and puts his hand on his brother's forehead, “This is going to hurt.” The swell of Grace fills the room, the house, and Cas gasps, gripping the edge of the counter behind him so hard it breaks. When he slumps to the floor as Gabriel backs away, Lucifer fixes the counter with a thought and watches Gabriel intently, “Not everything, Cas, not yet, but most of it; enough for you to see what is really going on.”

“Michael,” are his first words, face tilting up at lightening speed to stare between his brothers. “Could we make the rest of the angels remember? Could we get them join us?” he wants to know.

Balthazar shakes his head, “The five of us were the only one who were there, who really knew, and Legion is,” 

“Gone,” Lucifer finishes. 

Olle nods, his back is to them all now. “Coffee, I need coffee,” he says mental exhaustion radiating off of him.

Lucifer snaps saying, “Gabriel has been teaching me what good whiskey is,” and three bottles of whiskey appear on the island, with glasses. “We drank a lot of this Friday night and even Cas seemed to enjoy it.”

Olle pours himself a drink chuckling, “Yeah, he did start drinking pretty heavily when we left him alone.”

“What?” Cas asks coming to his feet and looking between them. 

“Yeah,” Gabriel says flashing suspicious eyes at Lucifer. 

With a thought, Lucifer looks exactly like he had Friday night and, leaning on the island against Olle, he asks, “Did I tell you you're a really good dancer?”

Olle leans into the archangel seductively and, with mirth dripping from his voice, says, “I think we're making your brothers uncomfortable.” Lucifer smiles and, laughing, takes Olle's glass, downing the contents. When he turns, leaning his back on the counter, he looks exactly like himself again. 

“I think I need one of those,” Cas says walking up to Olle's other side and reaching for a glass. “You're really no longer a megalomaniac bent on the destruction of humanity?” Cas asks Lucifer after emptying his glass. 

Everyone groans at Cas' wording and the ashamed, timid way Lucifer's whole body seems to change and shrink in on itself. He shakes his head, looking down at the ground. “The Mark,” he starts but then takes a deep breath and looks up at Cas, “but that is no excuse. I'm sorry for everything I did and I'm ashamed and I'm disgusted with myself for being so weak, so easily lead astray by Amara.” He shrugs then, “Olle and Cain, even Dean, did better with the Mark than I did. I'll never be able to fix it, make up for it. I know that. The best I can hope for,” he sighs and looks away, from all of them, again. “The best I can hope for is a chance to help save Creation again before I am punished for my sins.”

“Olle told me you helped him save me from Metatron's curse,” Cas says then, going over to put his hand on Lucifer's shoulder. “Thank you brother,” he says sincerely, with a small, genuine smile that Lucifer returns. 

“He saved Dean from Kristoff too,” Olle says. Cas turns to look at Olle, they all do, “He was using his Grace to shield them both from the dragon fire and, when Dean fell, he stabbed Kristoff in the back with his sword. That was enough of a distraction to let Dean crawl under the truck.” 

Lucifer looks down, embarrassed by all the positive attention. “Are we going to tell Cas what he needs to know?” the devil asks to change the subject. 

So they do. They tell him about Olle and Beth, who he meets in the middle of the tale, and they go into all the detail they can about what happened in the beginning, what happened with Michael, why they are training, what they believe Amara will do once she is strong enough, and how they have no idea how to stop her without their father's help. 

Hours later, when they are done, Cas looks at Olle and says, “Sam and Dean aren't ready to know. Until there is no other way, until we have a plan, their knowing you've all returned, that Lucifer is,”

“Playing with a full deck and batting on our team,” Gabriel says with a grin.

Cas nods, “Yes. Their knowing now will only give them more to worry about. They will question all your loyalties. They will not trust any of you. Telling them,” he looks hard at Olle and Beth who are sitting at the island while the angels are at the table, as far away as they can physically get from Gabriel, “telling them means telling them everything about Olle and Beth and how Amara was locked away the first time.”

“But none of us know how Dad did it!” Gabriel says. 

“Remembering,” Beth says quietly, “anything about right after the curse, about before humanity, is a fuzzy, jumbled mess in our head.”

“It is easier knowing, remembering, when we aren't contained,” Olle says and his counterpart nods. 

“But,” they both say at once and chuckle. 

Beth continues, “But, He,” she laughs, “they were opposing forces, existing in a fragile peace. Whatever He would do she would undo. When I, we,” she gestures to Olle, “began to shred into pieces, He took us from her and cobbled us back together.”

“It was intense,” Olle continues when she drifts off into silence. “Like we were a snowball in His hands and He kept grinding us together harder and tighter,” there is strain to his voice like he is feeling it again as he talks about it. “Eventually,”

“You exploded,” Gabriel says. 

Olle and Beth both nod. “The three of you were there the instant I began to break apart,” Olle says. “Maybe the instant before; I couldn't say for certain. There was so much me!” He shakes his head, “So much everything after that, but she was there, trying to rip it apart like she couldn't let Him have anything outside of her. Like she can't stand his ability to create because all she seems to be able to do is destroy.”

“Then there was light,” Beth starts up again, “and she was gone. Lucifer was in agony and you,” she turns tearful eyes to Gabriel, “you tried to comfort him, tried to console him. You stayed with him for so long! When his torment receded, it felt like I could breathe again.”

“What?” Lucifer asks, curious.

“You're all a part of me,” Olle says. “When I'm not focused, not human, feeling it all is too much and there were only the angels then, besides the ever expanding universe. You were the only sentient beings and, being a sentient being, it was all of you I honed in on to stop myself my going mad at the vastness of it all.” 

“We feel it all,” Beth says. “When disconnected from the confines of a human mind, we're nearly always overwhelmed by the nothingness that is, somehow, something; by the pain. Any joy felt in the beginning belonged only to God and I've never been able to feel His moods.”

“How long,” Cas asks, “is He going to make you live like this? As pieces of a whole?”

“Until the infinity of the universe comes to an end, I suppose,” Olle says with a shrug and a long drink from his glass. “He was adamant it wasn't a punishment; clear it was supposed to be a gift, my continued sentience. I'm not complaining, love is nice and, on an individual basis, people are awesome!”

“Sex is good too,” Beth says then. 

Olle chuckles, shaking his head, “What are we going to do then, Cas? About Sam and Dean.”

“I can't go back there knowing,” the angel says looking up at his brother, “Can you make me forget, again, Gabriel?”

“All of it?” the archangel asks. 

Cas nods, “All of it, even the conversation Olle and I had at the restaurant in Ohio.”

“It will be a shock to your system. It will weaken you,” Gabriel says. 

“That works perfectly, actually,” Cas says then. “Any damage done can be attributed to using my still weakened Grace to heal Metatron from his suicide attempt.”

“One of you,” Olle says then, “will need to stay with us, stay with him, to make sure his Grace recovers.”

“It is my turn,” Gabriel says. “Maybe the Men of Letter's has something in their library or archive that could be helpful. I can wile away my time looking.”

“Are you sure you want to go Gabe?” Lucifer says looking between his brother and the giant of a doctor. 

Gabriel give his brother, then Olle, a long look before he answers, “I can keep to myself. It will be fine.” Olle nods and Gabriel says, “Lets go boys,” before he snaps and they are all standing in the infirmary. 

“Okay Cassie,” Gabriel says, “you might wanna lay down for this.” Cas nods and spreads himself out on the bed beside Metatron's. Like before, Gabriel places his whole hand on his brothers forehead and the point of contact begins to glow with Grace. Cas calls out once, in shock, before he passes out. 

“He'll sleep for a while,” Gabe says turning away from Olle to look down at Metatron. “Cas wouldn't have been able to heal him completely,” he says. “You'll need to set him up, he'll need blood and fluids,” with a snap there are four liters of blood on the tray by the bed. 

Olle wants to talk to him, to look at him, but they had been avoiding each other since Gabriel made Cas remember and he has no idea what to say to angel anyway. He just nods his head and starts setting up. “I'll tell him he passed out when he kept Metatron from dying.” 

When everything is set up, Gabriel snaps and the scribe's whole appearance changes. “I put the blood back on the floor in his room. I'll be in the library or the archive. Please don't bother me,” he says before he disappears. He still had not looked at Olle.


	37. Chapter 37

Cas accepted what Olle told him happened, without question. Olle had not seen Gabriel since he vanished from the infirmary, but the angel must still be there because Beth calls him every night to check on him. Olle realized, on the first day, he could not spend all his time in the Bunker knowing Gabriel was there and wanted nothing to do with him. Therefore, what time he did not spend treating Metatron, he ran. He would jog around Lebanaon before going the two miles to the little park that marked the geographic center of the contiguous United States; where he would do yoga before backtracking to the Bunker. When he realized, on day two, that only took up about six hours of his day, he started to inventory the hospital wing. Metatron was still too weak to be moved back to his room, so Olle felt he was killing two birds with one stone by keeping him on suicide watch while giving the whole suite a thorough cleaning and reorganization. 

A week later, just as the sun was setting, Sam and Dean got back; they had been distracted by a salt-and-burn in Pittsburgh. Cas, apparently, was not as oblivious to Olle's behavior as the doctor hoped. When Sam and Dean returned, the angel must have said something to Sam, because, after making a thorough report about Metatron, Dean went to bed, but Sam said, “Hey Olle, can I talk to you for a second?”

“I'll sit with Metatron,” Cas said slipping out of the kitchen. He was doing surprisingly well with occasionally staying with the man, and Olle was proud of him. 

Olle shrugged, “Sure Sam.” He got up and refilled both their coffee cups before sliding into a chair in the corner next to the wall. 

“Cas said you've been going non-stop since you got back. What's up?” The hunter asked genuinely curious. 

Olle groans internally, wondering, 'What the fuck am I supposed to tell this kid?' He is thoughtful for a second before he says, “I think I've just been still too long and, now, Metatron needs medical care so, even if I found a hunt, I can't leave. It's just nervous energy, Sammy, I'll be okay.”

Sam nods, ignoring the use of his 'Dean only' nickname, before he says, “We've been home about an hour and even I can tell you're exhausted and you look like someone tortured a puppy right in front of you.” Sam leans into Olle's space, across the table, “Cas told me, in Philly, about your nightmare. I know,” he takes a deep breath, “I know what it's like to have Lucifer in your head. Talking about it may help.”

Olle laughs at that and tells Sam a jumbled up version of the truth, “I lied to Cas about Lucifer. Time loops are easier than healing for angels; they have trouble understand the mesh of chemistry, biology, and magick that makes up a person.” Olle hates that the archangel's name brought him into the kitchen, leaning against the doorway, but he is going to tell Sam and he will find a way to apologize to Lucifer later. 

“How long?” Sam asks with as sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

Olle does not answer, “You want to know what he did? Killing the pagans, after what happened, went to the top of his list. He found them even more offensive, somehow, than humans. His priority seemed to be gathering up everything that reminded him of Gabriel, though, and destroying it. One by one he brought his brother's friends, his children, to me and, when I wouldn't fight the first one, he made me watch what he did to her. So, after that, I killed them all. Every one of them he dropped in front of me, I fought them and I killed them as quickly as I could; even the ones I knew, the ones I liked. And he cried and railed at me while I held them and cried for them, for Gabriel, for myself. When they were all dead, it took decades, he started to cut into me. He couldn't understand love,” Olle says tearing up. “He thought,” he starts to cry then, but goes on, “he thought Gabriel had stopped loving him. Thought he loved me, loved the pagans, more than him. He was mad with grief.” He looks up then, locking eye with Lucifer and sees they are both crying. 

Lucifer disappears and Olle prays silently, “Luce, go find your brother and talk to him. Tell him you love him. Remember, you're not the same any more. I forgive you. I promise, you're not the same. I swear it! Gabriel, find Luce, he needs you.” He hopes that is enough because Sam is clearing his throat, about to speak. 

“That is not what it was like for me,” Sam says quietly. “Do you think Gabriel still loved him?”

Olle laughs then, rubbing his face with his hand, “Of course he did. You love Dean, don't you? Loved him as a demon. Loved him when he was lost to the Mark. When Gabe stood up to him,” Olle says, “it wasn't about you or Dean or Michael or anything else. It was about him realizing he loved his brother more than he loved himself. He loved him enough to kill him, if he could, and to die trying if he couldn't, because the thing Lucifer had become, it wasn't him anymore.”

Sam has no idea what to say about the turn in the conversation so he backtracks, “Why are you dragging yourself down? Cas says you're moving non-stop or you're locked in your room having nightmares instead of sleeping.”

Olle laughs, shaking his head, “I sleep.” He does, Beth calls and talks to him until he falls asleep. If he wakes up in the middle of the night, he finds Lucifer sitting on the bed reading and goes back to sleep. It is just being awake and knowing Gabriel is so close, knowing Cas choose his mission over his soulmate, again, and knowing he cannot comfort the archangel even though Olle knows Gabriel has to be hurting. So, he finds other things to do, things that will keep him so busy he will not start tearing through the Bunker looking for Gabriel. He is certain the argument they would have would blow any idea of secrecy out the window. “I'm not having nightmares; not any more than any other hunter. I just need to stay busy right now and, with nothing on the Amara front, I'm trying to find other ways to keep myself occupied.”

“Is there any way we could put Metatron somewhere, where he can get the help he needs, and you could go back to hunting?” Sam asks. 

Olle laughs at that, “Where Sam? An institution? He's supposed to go talk to a shrink about how he would rather be dead than be a person because he use to be an angel?”

“Yeah,” Sam says shaking his head, “okay, you're right.” Sam gets up then, grabs and apple and a glass of water before he sits back down, “We gotta make some changes to Metatron's room. Make sure there is nothing in there he can hurt himself on.”

“I've already taken care of it. I exchanged the bunk for a PVC and canvas cot, I glued it together, I took the shower curtain and the hose, it's just a pipe and a drain, I took the sheets and left a fleece blanket. I'm not sure there is much else we can do; give and take clothes and towels as he uses them so he doesn't try to hang himself with them.” Olle gets up, “I'm going jogging. I'll be back in a couple hours.” 

“Does this, does this have something to do with that guy, Mark?” Sam asks suddenly. “Cas said you've been weird since you left Philly.”

Olle chuckles then, leaning in the doorway to the kitchen, “Yeah, yeah I guess it kinda does. Not like you might think, though.”

“What do you mean?” Sam wants to know. “What sends you out jogging in the dark when Cas says you've already been out once today?”

“You know,” he says coming back over to sit down, “if Amara wins, all this,” he gestures in an all encompassing way, “with the possible exception of me, probably, goes away. If I'm lucky, she finds a way to hurt me, to kill me, but, if not, I'm stuck for all eternity with her and God? And, if she hates her brother enough to destroy everything, why would she not kill him?” Olle shrugs then, moving back over to the door, “I see now, I guess, how fragile you all are and it frightens me; the idea of being alone forever.” Olle walks out then and spends the next few hours downstairs lifting weights instead of jogging.


	38. Chapter 38

At five-thirty the next morning, Olle is stumbling from the infirmary to the kitchen for coffee; Metatron's fits of melancholy and rage are starting to take a tole, on top of everything else. Thankfully, he thinks, as he turns the corner and sees the light from the kitchen, the patient will be well enough to move back to his holding cell soon. He has thrashed and complained and begged all night and Olle is starting to feel for him. When Olle gets into the kitchen, he sees a lot of strange things at once, though, and thoughts of Metatron are banished for the moment. 

Standing at the stove, cooking what smells like marshmallow fluff, is a man of average height and large build in a yellow and white striped Henley and rainbow suspenders. It takes Olle a few seconds to realize this is a Zanna and, while he is immediately curious as to what it is doing here, he just goes over and makes coffee, trying to ignore the supposedly invisible imaginary friend. When Olle slides down the wall onto a chair at the table, the creature turns and sees him for the first time. 

The Zanna stares at Olle for along moment, curious, before he comes over and asks, “What are you?”

Olle smiles, impressed it took the time to reach out and realize it could be seen. “I'm Olle,” the big man says with a smile, holding out his hand. 

“Sully,” he says, giving Olle's hand a suspicious look before he takes it in a firm shake. “How can you see me?”

Olle shrugs, turning up his coffee, “I see everything,” he replies. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm here for Sam,” Sully says turning back to the stove and grabbing a plate of chips he then pours his melted fluff over. 

“What's wrong with Sam,” Olle wants to know, “that you felt compelled to visit a man in his mid thirties?”

Sully shakes his head, “I need his help. Someone, something, is killing my friends. He is a hunter, he was my friend, he can help.”

Olle nods, shocked, who would want to kill Zanna? They are peaceful, loving creatures who do more good in this world than just about anything else. “You were his friend when he was a boy,” Olle says as realization dawns and Sully shakes his head. “I'll go,” Olle says getting up, “make enough noise to wake them. He should be this way in about a half hour, is that okay?”

Sully smiles then, “Thank you.” Olle just nods, refills his coffee cup, and heads out. 

Olle sits his cup on the War Room table and grabs a box of books he left there when he and Cas got back from Kansas City. Sam and Dean, Sam especially, are both light sleepers so Olle merely heads down the corridor toward their rooms and, once outside Dean's door, he drops the box and, for added affect, stumbles sideways into the door with a crash and a muttered curse. 

Seconds later, as Olle is packing up his spilled box, Dean's door jerks open and, gun in hand, the hunter steps out. Looking around, he sees Olle and groans, “Really? It's not even six-thirty and you're gigantor ass is up fucking around, waking people up?”

“I've been on suicide watch all night short-stack,” Olle says standing, box in hand; glaring down at Dean. “He's been bitching and rattling his restraints all night. Sue me, I tripped over my own feet because I fell asleep while I was walking!”

“Fuck, fine!” Dean says exasperated. “I'm going to shower, I'll check on him. Get some sleep man, you look like shit.” Dean's door slams shut and Olle can hear him moving around. He adjusts the box, smiles, and heads back to the War Room. Sitting the box down, Olle grabs his coffee and heads back toward Sam's room.

Sam is easier to wake than his brother, mainly because Olle just knocks on the door. Dean is too fun to screw with and Sam, he would just be all innocence and puppy eyes and serious concern if Olle pretended to pass out while walking. 

“Sam,” Olle says in a soft tone when the door opens. “I'm knackered man, Metatron's been a pain in the ass all night. I've got to get some sleep or I'm gonna drop where I stand. It's almost seven, can you check on him once you're up? I made coffee,” he says holding up his own cup. 

Sam smiles and shakes his head, “Yeah, man, try to get some sleep.” 

Olle nods and wonders away to his own room, to do just that. Just as he is about to drop off, though, someone knocks on the door. He knows they are just telling him they are leaving with Sully, but he wishes they had just left a note. Olle makes his way to the door, in the dark, and cracks it open to see Sam standing there, hair still damp but fully dressed and bag thrown over his shoulder. Olle has to stretch then so he steps back into his room and says, through his yawn, “Wha's up Sam?” Sam is quiet for a moment, just staring, and Olle notices his eyes roaming over the world tree on his side. “Sam,” Olle says with a smile, “I'm hot, I get it, you can check me out later.” The hunter turns scarlet and Olle laughs. “Going somewhere?” he asks motioning to the bag Sam is carrying. 

“Sorry,” Sam says embarrassed. “Yeah,” he adjusts, like he just noticed the bag thrown over his shoulder, “yeah, we're heading out. Caught a case. Sorry. I told Cas to check on Metatron and let you sleep, though.”

“Awesome, Sammy, thanks,” the immortal says. “Let me know if you guys need anything. What's going on?”

“Do you know what Zanna are?” Sam asks. 

“Imaginary friends, yeah.” Olle smiles, “I had two when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure only one of them was Zanna, the other was a figment our both our imaginations. Why?”

“Someone is killing them,” Sam says.

“Those poor kids,” Olle says. “Just losing their best friend like that, and no one will understand, or be able to see. Be careful Sam, kids are hard.”

Sam pauses for a minute, like he had not thought of the children who were losing their confidants, then nods and turns to go. “Get some rest man,” he calls over his shoulder. 

Olle shuts the door and goes back to bed. When sleep finds him, it is filled with memories of a pudgy little girl with two best friends no one can see and how they kept the harshness of her reality at bay. His sleep is, by no means, restful, but at least the horror that eventually creeps in is a different variety. Hours later, he wakes up panting, covered in sweat, and crying; Gabriel is sitting by the bed, in the dark, but Olle knows he is there. 

“What are you doing?” Olle asks still trying to catch his breath, eyes swollen and sinuses clogged by the tears he could not stop in his sleep. 

“I'm strong enough to hear past the sigils and the warding and the soundproofing,” Gabriel says quietly.

“Is your brother okay?” Olle wants to know, turning the lamp on and getting up to go wash his gummy face. “I'm sorry he heard me talking to Sam. I tried to apologize, he heard me, didn't he?” Olle asks drying his face. 

Gabriel's face softens, “He is good. I found him as soon as you prayed and we had a long talk. I think he'll be okay.”

“Good,” Olle says sitting back down on the edge of the bed. He can see the angel now, small form on the other side of the bed, more than half in shadow; even so, Olle thinks he looks tired. He starts to worry, then, because that should not be possible. “Are you okay? You look tired. That worries me, it shouldn't be possible.”

Gabriel shrugs, “You said yourself, emotional exhaustion.” He gets up and starts to pace, “I just need to find something! Anything that could help us! Help figure out what she is doing, where she is, what her end game is! How to kill her, cage her, anything!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Olle says coming around the bed to take Gabriel's hands in his, stopping him in his tracks, and he falls, slumped in a chair. Olle folds to the floor, between the archangel's spread legs, never breaking eye contact, “You're not the only one looking. And, you're not the only one coming up with nothing. It makes perfect sense she would be just as impossible to find as your father, she is his sister. They share a level of power none of us can know, even if they are opposing forces.”

The angel nods his reluctant agreement with the big man's words, but he says, “Why did he bring me back if I can't fix this? Dean is half in-love with her and is almost trying not to find her while Sam is still just beyond happy to have his brother back. And Cas,” he voice breaks then and Olle squeezes his hands so tight it would break human bone. “Cas is more worried about the harm done to his relationship with them than he is actually doing anything productive.”

“Okay,” Olle says making a decision. He stands up, pulling Gabriel with him back over to the bed. “You need to chill out for a while, relax.” 

He sits on the edge of the bed and gives the angel's hands a tug, but Gabriel lets him go and backs away. “What are you doing?” he asks shocked. 

Olle shakes his head, only a little hurt, “I'm not trying to fuck you Gabe. Lay down with me. You always seemed to like it, even if you didn't always sleep. It will help me sleep and you can relax, just for a few hours, please?” Gabriel still seems uncertain so Olle tries again, “I've gotta get some rest, Gabe, please. I haven't really slept, without nightmares, Beth talking me down every night, and your brother sitting here watching me sleep while he reads; I still jerk myself awake a couple times a night.”

Gabriel is hesitant, but he watches Olle get in bed, under the covers, relaxed and ready for sleep, before he snaps his clothes away and crawls in after him, letting Olle make him the most comfortable little spoon in the world. The angel is asleep before the man.

**Author's Note:**

> I try to be as accurate as I can writing about the places the characters are. I use real restaurants and bars, street names, businesses, and landmarks. I will always have Sam and Dean going into Smith Center instead of staying in Lebanon when they want or need anything more than gas or a trip to the grocery. Lebanon is a blip, sorry if you happen to be from there, but it's teeny-tiny and there isn't much more there than a church and a post office from what I could see on Google Earth or find out doing research. 
> 
> The above being said, if you find anything wrong with the geography or descriptions of places I've never been but you have, let me know. I'm not going to go back and change it, but it will be interesting to see how off I was when comparing what I saw in my head with what is really there.


End file.
